Month: May 2022

Freelancing Or Business? Which Of The Two Should You Invest Most of Your Time And Money In

Freelancing and business share a lot in common. That’s why many people are capable of tackling both of them at a go. But which of the two should one invest more of their time in?

On this blogpost, I will try to demystify the strengths and weaknesses of each one of them so that you see where you need to invest most of your energy in online.

All the information I am going to share with you here is based on my experience freelancing on different freelancing platforms and running a video production business based in Nairobi Kenya.

First, I will start with the common things that freelancing and business share in common.

Common Things That Freelancers And Business People/Entrepreneurs Share

low section of man against sky — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Freedom To Make Choices – Freelancers and business people have freedom to make their choices. They choose when to work, what to work on, where to work, when to go for vacation e.t.c.
Can Propose or Set Their Rates – When a client or prospect shares details of what they want done, freelancers or entrepreneurs can propose how much they will charge for their services. If the client agrees to it, they can set up a contract based on what has been agreed upon. This is the beauty of being either a freelancer or an entrepreneur.
Unlimited Earnings – Freelancers and business people are capable of making a lot of money based on the amount of contracts they win. More contracts means more money.
Can Work Anywhere – While a business person needs a permanent business establishment/location/offices for for them to operate, individuals who own online businesses offering services can work anywhere. This is the same case with freelancers, they can work anywhere.
Can Partner In Projects– Freelancers and business people can collaborate together very well in business dealings. In many scenarios, the business owner is usually the employer while the freelancer is the contractor.

With this said, it exists important things that differentiates freelancing and business.

Difference Between Freelancing And Business

Freelancer	NO	Business Person/Entrepreneur
You are limited on the who to contact for business. Most freelancers rely on invitations for interview and bidding on job posts on a freelancing platform.	1	Depends on your aggressiveness to look for business. You are free to identify and contact as many prospects as you can.
A freelancers is governed by a freelancing platform terms of service. Their profiles are at risk if they break certain rules.	2	Businesses are governed by the rules they set by the founders. Clients have the choice of either accepting or rejecting work offered to them.
Most of the project rates are set by the client. There is little freedom to make choices.	3	Business people send quotes based on the clients brief. They are free to quote the amount they want.
Growth is dependent on your past clients reviews. You have no control of any negative review you receive.	4	You have control on the reviews. You can grow depending how knowledgeable you are in a given assignment and not on what other people say about your services.
The clients you meet or have are yours as long as you remain on a given freelancing platform. You are not allowed to contact them outside the platform.	5	The clients who hires you are fully yours. You can communicate freely with them and ask for business.
If you are hired by many clients on a freelancing platforms, you are not allowed to sub-contract the same work to other freelancers unless you have a freelance agency on the same site.	6	You are the boss. You can contract and sub-contract with your set terms and conditions. This is the beauty of owning a business.
You are exempted from PAYE tax and only required to declare income tax on all your earnings annually. In some countries, income earned from a foreign country is not taxed.	7	Your business is governed by the tax laws of your country and you must be compliant to them. Failure to comply may result in your business being closed down.
The future of your success is at the mercies of the freelancing site you are in. If the site finds any small discrepancies in your account or a client reports your account for no reason, your account will be closed or suspended.	8	You hold the future of your business as you will grow from the repeat work from same clients. When you do good job, clients will recommend your services.

Comparison Between freelancing and Business

As you can see business wins when it comes to a long term investment with high returns. However, its important to point out the roles that freelancing plays when starting up.

Why Freelancing Is Important When Starting Up An Online Business

Freelancing plays a major role when starting up an online business. Here is why it might be a good idea to invest your time in freelancing first before launching your online business.

woman inside booth — Photo by Quang Nguyen Vinh on Pexels.com

Raise Capital – At the early stages of starting an online business, one needs to invest money into building a system in form of a website. You can raise capital to build your online business offering freelance service online. The rule to this is; Don’t be carried away by the freelancing jobs to a point you forget about establishing your online business.
Identify a niche Within Your Skills– Freelancing platforms is the home for different skillsets. If you succeed freelancing in a given niche, it’s a pointer that there is demand for that service and others that are trending on a given freelancing platform in the same niche. This way, you can position your services in the online market place with a lot of confidence.
Income To Sustain Yourself – Before you start earning from your business, you need money for upkeep. This is the money that you can easily earn offering freelancing services.

And that is it from me. I hope this article was helpful to you.

Should people invest more of their time offering freelance services or doing business?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

And if you are looking for professional video production services, you can request a quote for free on Techtube Video Studio website. You will get a response within 12 hours.

Until next time, bye bye and take care.

Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

May 31, 2022

Is The Freelancing Site You Are Working in Holding You From Your Dream Business?
Freelancing sites are perfect avenues to work in when you have clients who give you recurrent tasks and pays you well for the services you offer to them.

Photo by Oudney Patsika on Pexels.com

But have you ever asked yourself where you will be if the freelancing platform you are in collapses today?

Freelancing website platforms have a way of holding unto freelancers and keeping them in their comfort zone. I mean thats what they have to do in order to remain afloat in business.

Many great entrepreneurs lose the vision they had of setting and running a successful online business the moment they start getting freelancing clients.

One slowly starts allocating more of their time to freelancing and before they know, their drive to own an online business dies.

So how do you know that your dream of owning a business is dying as a freelancer?

Keep reading as that is what I will be discussing on this blogpost.

Tell Tell Signs You Taken Away By The Freelancing Platforms

#1 All Your Current Clients Are On A Freelance Platform

Unlike any other job, freelancing is the quickest path to owning a business. This is because you have the freedom to plan your time.

This is unlike 9-5 job where you depend on someone else to make decision for you. So if you only have clients you met on a freelancing platform, then you are loosing it.

#2 You Always Talk About The Freelancing Platform

An entrepreneur should always market his business whenever he or she gets a chance. A freelacing platform is business like yours and has a mechanism of marketing itself. You too should spend more time marketing and telling people about your business instead.

If you are currently doing the opposite, the

#3 You Are Signing Up On More Freelancing Platforms

Thats what will motivate one to take such action by signing up on more platforms in order to tap on more clients. What they forget is, the clients they find there is not their own clients, its the freelancing platforms clients.

The freelancing platform can decide to suspend their accounts anytime on the platform. If you are currently working on more than 2 freelancing platforms and you are an entrepreneur, stop and think, because you are loosing a lot.

#4 You Are Doing Everything Yourself

Photo by Eva Elijas on Pexels.com

Freelancing limits you to doing the job yourself. If you try to have someone do the work, you make losses because the pay is not enough.

Dont let freelancing take everything from you. If the earnings from freelancing is the one that fuels your business, then dont accept many jobs.

Be always open to invest in a team even if it means training them on the skills you have. Write ‘

#5 You Are Always Complaining of Low Paying Clients

Lets face it, in every 3 job postings on a freelancing platform, 2 are paying very poorly. Complaining on different online forums wont change this, as its mostly up to freelancers to apply on not to.

Always ask yourself instead is, where can I find well paying clients? Once you find an answer, go out and look for them. Don’t limit yourself to one place.

#6 Successful Freelancers Hype

Whoever said there is no free lunch was right. Take the motivation and and if you want, buy the course but never let it blind you from going for your dream business. While in all this hulabaloo, remind yourself that you have a business to market.

Dangers of Putting All Your Efforts/Mind/
Focus On a Freelancing Platform
- Competion becomes fiecer everyday as more freelancers join a platform.
- The freelancing site can suspend your account anytime they want and you have nothing to say.
- The clients you meet on a freelancing platform are not your clients. You are not allowed to share contacts and communicate with them directly on e-mail or you will be violating the terms of the platform.
- Freelancing platforms algorithms can eliminate you without your knowledge. I have been a client there and have seen many applications being hidden. Application being hidden is like an e-mail being marked as spam. So put yourself in that shoe and think.
- Being in many freelancing sites doesen’t necessarily mean you will be successful. Some clients post same job in 3-4 freelancing sites in order to find the lowest bidding freelancer. And you can know this if you are a freelancer on all those sites. That means they might hire someone in the site you are not in.
- You might end up leading a lonely life. The jobs you get does not pay enough for you to outsource and build a business. If you work from home, you will find yourself so tied up on the jobs you have and detatched from the outside world. Lonely life is the worst thing one would want live especially in the African setting in the name of wanting to become rich Freelancing.
- With the growing number of freelancers joining the freelancing platforms and number of clients hiring through the platforms shrinking, its becoming hard to succeed freelancing and becoming rich than it was before.
Conclusion

All freelancers have high potential of becoming sucessful in businesss. If your original dream was to become a sucessful entrepreneur, stick to it.

Dont be carried away by freelancing platforms which offer you quick connection to clients by just setting up a profile. Aim for sky. The sky is the limit. Within no time, you will have found those high paying clients.

And thats it from me here.

What’s making you hold unto a freelancing platform and forget about your business? Let me know in the comments section below.

If are looking for professional video production services, let me know here. You can request for a quote on www.techtubestudio.com.

Until next time, bye bye and take care. Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.
May 19, 2022
6 Step Guide To Setting Up Your Terms As An Online Business Owner or A Freelancer
‘Having Clear Terms‘ is the means to success online as a business owner or a freelancer. Experience has thought me that if you don’t have well defined terms, the probability of you succeeding online is very slim.

So where do you start? The answer to this is reliant on your level of experience serving online clients as a business owner or a freelancer. Do you understand how online marketplace work?

For example, have you used Escrow payment before or do you know how it works? Working out your ‘own terms‘ is not something that you can do in one day. It comes in as they are needed.

Let’s say it’s a paragraph or point that you add to your existing list of terms in a document as the need arises.

When defining your terms, its good to know where to start. That is what I will focusing on this blogpost.

1. Scope of Work

It starts with the clients scope of work. What does the client want you to do and can you do it?. This is very important. Many online business owners and freelancers I know in the video production industry are good at video creation and editing. However, when it comes to animations and motion graphics, they outsource.

Make sure you are very clear with your client in what you can provide, outsource and what you cannot. Don’t lie that you can do it or find someone who can do it and end up not doing it. You will have failed the client and yourself.

Making your stand very clearly understood by the client is in itself a term. e.g Telling the client “I will require you to provide a given list of items” makes it clear to the client on what you will provide.

2. Cost of The Project

Once you have agreed with the client on the scope of work and both of you are happy, move on to the cost of the project. How much will the project cost? Based on the defined scope of work, come up with a quotation listing each item and it’s cost. Most clients are ok if you do this directly on the e-mail body.

Professionally, I recommend doing your quotation on Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets and sharing it as a link or attaching it to the e-mail as a PDF file. This way, collaboration will be easy and the client can print the document and put it on a file for records.

Costing is usually easy if you have your own standard production rates.

3. Payment Terms

Now that the client has agreed to your proposed quote and the deal is closed, go ahead and discuss with him/her, how you would like the client to pay you. Mostly, it’s good to break down this into two parts.
- Payment Breakdown – Since you have not met the client in person and probably the client is on another continent, have them make a down payment of 50% as a show of commitment. Alternatively, if you are using Escrow service, have the payment broken down to 2 parts of 50/50. 50% when you deliver the first draft of the video and the remaining 50% once you are done.
- Payment Methods – Share with your client the payment methods you prefer. e.g. PayPal, Credit card e.t.c.
Most clients love it when you are clear on how you would like to receive your payments. They know that by honoring your terms, their work will be completed on time.

4. Revisions And Modifications

Once you deliver the project and the client needs revisions or modifications, what are your terms on this? For example you can say, you offer 3 rounds of revisions for free. Anything after that is billable.

If you are new to online business and freelance marketplace, you will not know it until a client requests for several revisions to a point you are tired of making them.

When revisions and modification term is in place, everyone will be careful not to make any mistake from their end because of the cost implications.

5. Mode of Collaboration

As an online freelancer or business owner, expect to receive large files from your clients. This means you must be subscribed to a paid cloud service like Dropbox, OneDrive or GoogleDrive. This way, you can have your file sync automatically on the background.

Agree on a mode of collaboration for their project. E.g If you are a content creator, you can decide to use google docs for scripting and Dropbox for videos. Either way, it will be easy for each of you to quickly locate a shared file and share their feedback.

If you are dealing directly with the client, communication through e-mail is ok. However if you are dealing with a team, then using free collaboration apps like slack will be great.

6. Refund Policy

Lastly, it’s good to have a refund policy in place as part of your terms. What happens if the client requests for a refund after you have started work with them? That’s why this is important. This way, when the client is getting into work agreement with you and making partial payments, they understand clearly the policy.

A good refund policy is the one that is considerate. A win win. i.e. ‘If the client cancels the contract after delivery of the first draft of the video with no clear reason, 50% paid as the down payment will not be refunded.’

Conclusion

Ensure the client signs and sends you back the contract terms you share with them before starting work.
We all know, people hate signing documents with long form terms. Insist that you have an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) in place anyway before starting any work. Clients with high value contracts are the ones who requests you to sign an NDA because they know the risks and consequences of what may arise later.

For example, if you offer video production services like me, and in your contract with the client, you had a clause on commercial license fee of 10% of the contract sum. You can sue the client if they use the content commercially without consulting you. Contracts are there to protect each party from abuse.

And that is it from me here.

What are your guiding pointers when defining your terms to a client as a video producer?

Please let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

And if you need professional video tutorial services for websites and apps, you can request a free quote on www.techtubestudio.com . You will get a response within 12 hours.

Until next time, bye bye and take care.

Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.
May 12, 2022
How to Add And Verify WordPress XML Sitemap With Bing and Google Webmaster Tools

How to Add and Verify XML Sitemap With Bing Webmaster And Google Search Console

In this video tutorial, I will show how to add and verify WordPress XML sitemap with Bing and Google webmaster tools. Adding XML sitemap to webmaster tools will help you improve your search rankings on Google and Bing search.

Step 1 – Find And Copy the XML Sitemap Link

We will be using Yoast SEO to do this. To find your website sitemap XML link, on your WordPress dashboard, hover your mouse SEO and select General.

Click on features then click on the question mark under XML sitemaps. Click on see ‘XML sitemap’ link. Copy the link from your browser.

Step 2- Add To Google Search Console

When you login to google webmaster tools, your verified websites will display on the console. Click on the one you want to add and verify XML sitemap.

Hover your mouse to sitemaps on the left side menu and click on it. It will open a page to the right. On the box that says ‘add a new sitemap’ paste the link you have and click submit. It will take few minutes to process.

Step 3- Add XML Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools

Open your Bing webmaster tools account where you have your website or blog. Select the website you want to add sitemap.

Click on sitemap. Click submit a sitemap. Enter the sitemap URL and click on submit.

Once done processing the status will display as success. And that is it. You have successfully added XML sitemap to google search console and Bing webmaster tools.

If you found the video or this step by step tutorial helpful, leave a comment below and let me know.

For professional video tutorial services for websites and apps, request a free quote on www.techtubestudio.com . You will get a response within 12 hours.

Until next time, bye bye and take care.

Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

May 9, 2022