Jake’s Life

pMy neck’s hurt so bad lately. Really tight at the base of my skull. No bueno./p pFinished a bunch of copy for my new client, so hopefully I’ll get the approval on that so I can move forward. /p pI also wanted to touch on something else I’m realizing. It doesn’t matter if you invoice people before they leave the country, they’ll find some way to stall paying it. They’ll gripe, they’ll moan. They’ll say they don’t have what they need to pay it (meaning a credit card number). But if you let them know that you’re sticking to your contract and holding off on future work with a payment outstanding for over a month, God forbid!/p

I got a phone call from a client today saying that she had good news. Evidently her web site—which yours truly developed and designed for her—which is going live in the net day or two, will be featured on the apparently famous Brides.com. I’ve never been so excited to have a project of mine featured on Brides.com. In fact, I’ve never thought of myself and Brides.com being in the same sentence together!

With the nearing completion of a major web project I find myself asking those I now to check it out and let me know what they think. Sandro’s tested it on his shiny, new iPhone 3G, I’ve done the same on my Blackberry, and so far so good. I would love to have a few others help me out by going to the site, browsing it, tossing items in their cart, go through the checkout process, then cancel the order just before payment. I just want input on the general usability of the site.

Anyone up to it?

One of my major web projects is 99.999% complete. The site should be live any day now, and this client also has two other smaller sites waiting in the wings for me. In the meantime, I am working on an even bigger project which has presented some unique challenges just because of the custom options for each items in the e-commerce app. It’s definitely testing my problem solving skills.

I’m also half way through with a smaller brochure web site, which should be posted any day now as well.

I got business cards printed and shipped, so they should be here tomorrow.

I also set up a separate domain name for my web design freelancing, www.jacobidesign.com. If you send me a client, I’ll give you 10%!

Once a week, if I’m not working on too many things, I’ll post ads on Craigslist or look at a few freelance job directories to see what I can’t pick up. Right now one of my clients, who is still paying me, has not sent me anything in over a month, and she is insisting on getting everything together before she sends anything else to me. My major site that I started last month is almost done, so I’m looking for some things to keep busy with.

Today I was e-mailing back and forth with someone who wanted a mouth watering burger but only wanted to pay for mystery meat. After letting her know what she would be getting for the amount I was asking for (which, as Sandro always tells me, “If they want to pay X, then tell them to go pay for it, but you get what you pay for”), she pulled out the, “Well, I was quoted X by someone else.”

I’m shocked, dismayed, and quite hurt, ma’am.

I decided to pay a visit to CL and see who else was posting on there. I found a few and decided to run my own little secret shopper experiment.

Now, I don’t feel I’m in a position to criticize others’ freelance habits, because I know that I’m not perfect, but here are a few things I found that stood out:

• One of the e-mails I received from one person was from one address, and a short while later from another address. This is probably because the person is using either a smartphone which has multiple accounts routed to it, or Outlook with multiple mail boxes. If I were a serious candidate for business, what address do I send them mail at that I would know without a doubt is going to be checked?
• “Sent from my T-Mobile Blackberry smartphone.” I love my Blackberry, and I would never leave home without it, but my e-mail signature reflects what account I’m using (Ex.: “Jacob [Last Name], [Phone], [URL]).
• The above person you could tell was using a Blackberry. After two paragraphs of describing what I need, I got a short reply asking if I use PayPal as my billing system.

It’s good to be able to see what others out there are doing, and how I can improve my practices to stand out from them. I don’t feel very bad for e-mailing them under the guise of a web customer, because it’s a standard business practice and I am positive others have done so to me.

Things have come a long way since I was freelancing web design before. Back then I used Mambo with several extensions to manage my website, design inquiries, invoices, etc. I chose to look into more modern ways of doing this simply because of the Web 2.0 "revolution" and its offerings. I have a few criteria: The app has to be free (I refuse to pay for software when there are equivalent software that’s free); The app has to be quick to setup and operate; and the app has to give the appearance of professionalism as it relates to clients.

Invoicing

I tried Bamboo Invoices. Bamboo is a PHP app that is hosted on your own web server (or local server setup) that bills itself as simple. It is simple, but to go beyond simple to the point that it’s customized for what you need it gets time consuming. It also doesn’t allow you to process payments through the software.

I finally decided on CurdBee, which is a hosted invoice app. You register, it creates a sub-domain where you can login (for example, yourname.curdbee.com), and once you login presents a Dahsboard where you can view your drafts, overdue, and open invoices. You can brand the colors and logo it shows your clients, which is nearly unheard of with a free app.

To create a new invoice you click a few times, offer payment methods, and it sends an e-mail to the client to notify them. One thing I like about CurdBee is it allows my clients to pay through PayPal by clicking on a link from the invoice.

Project Management

For project management I wanted an app that was simple to use so that I could offer my clients the option of logging in to manage tasks and files, but not have to explain to them how to do it. Again, free was a must.

I looked at a few others before I decided on Project Pier. A self-hosted app, Project Pier lets you create a project, set milestones, create task lists, assign tasks to users, and show progress on completed items, upload files for review and storage, and even create simple forms to gather input from clients. A few useful features it has are RSS feeds based on projects so that you can be notified through your feed reader when something is updated, and tagging so that you can tag any aspect to quickly find later.

The great thing about Project Pier, and why it works for me, is that there are not a lot of features that I don’t use on a daily basis, but it’s not so simple that you have to modify how you manage projects just because the app doesn’t have the functionality.

Fax Service

I didn’t have one until a client insisted on faxing me the contract she signed. OneFax seemed to be the one to use: Unlimited faxes (both incoming and outgoing), an e-mail type interface for your faxes, and an easy way to send PDF’s as a fax. The 90-day free trial worked great.

The eco-friendly janitorial site I finished was published today. The other day I received a signed contract for a larger project, and yesterday I began speaking with a new potential client over another larger project. I also switched car insurers, which saves me about $70 per month on my policy. If anyone else has any money they’d like to drop in my lap, I won’t turn you away. Seriously.

I’ve found some really good community sites out there pertaining to freelancing and working in the web field contract-based, and have been listening to the podcasts at Freelance Switch lately. Here’s some more interesting articles and sites relating to web working:

Legalese for Freelancers: Creating a Contract

Nine Factors to Consider When Determining Your Price

Building Credibility: 11 Ways to Show You’re a Professional

Web Worker Daily — The Why & How of Firing Clients

Web Worker Daily — Get Organized: Keep All Your Work in One Place

…Evernote is my choice… (see above link)

12 Breeds of Client and How to Work With Them

Yesterday I finished one of the web design contracts I was working on, but the client hasn’t uploaded it yet. They needed a really basic site, or as they put it, “a glorified brochure.” See the entire review site here.

I set up payment arrangements for my big contract today, so that will be nice to have a steady flow of extra income for a while, even after the projects done and running.

Sorry about not blogging in a while! Things have been definitely hectic. I had to fill some larger boots at work for a few weeks with my supervisor being gone, and picked up some overtime shifts in the process. The new 4/4 shifts are going great so far, but I am concerned over Sandro for my shift rotation on weekdays off. He insists he’ll be fine with it and we’re working out a system where he’ll still spend the night at my house during the week when I’m off. Mostly he’s happy that dinner will be made, his laundry will be done, and everything else will be taken care of while he’s at work and school.

Now that we’re on the topic of domestication, we’re officially looking for a place together. We’re both saving up and remotely checking apartments out. I’m on the lease here until next Summer so when we decide it’s time I’ll have to find someone to take the lease over, but if worse comes to worse he can cover the new place for a month or two while I do that.

In saving money I decided to get back into some freelance web design gigs. Within the last week I’ve set up three different gigs totaling $2500. One I am 95% percent done with and the only thing left to do is hand over the files, but I worked too quickly on it and am still waiting for the deposit check. The other begins in a few days, and the third client I am meeting with next weekend (my ex introduced us). Also, if any readers out there are interested in web design work definitely let me know and I’ll give you a good price. My largest contract, bid at $4000 by another freelance designer in the area, I signed her for $1500. I’m trying to keep the mind set of charging what the work is worth, not how much I think I can get for it. Oh, and if you hook me up with someone who needs a web site I’ll give you 10% of the total cost on it as a commission.

The other night Sandro and I went to see Eartha Kitt live at a jazz club in downtown. We got down there early to avoid the Saturday night pilgrimage to downtown and got parking. We stopped by Gameworks and played some video games, grabbed a beer at their bar, then walked to get our tickets. We had reservations and it was still another hour to go, so we went to the Westin and grabbed a drink at their bar before heading back over to the jazz club and stood in line. I was not a fan of hers and was going mainly for Sandro, but I have to say she put on a hell of a show. We sat at the first table in the very front center of the stage.

I’ll try to keep you guys updated more often! I have plenty of pics on my Blackberry that I still need to post too.