I’ve been following Seth Godin for years now, and while he occasionally can get a little bootstrappy, he’s hands down my favorite marketing guru (he’s one of the few people I’ll use that title for seriously) AND he has a long history of working as a freelancer. That’s why I’m always excited when he takes […]
Don’t Know the Value You Provide as a Freelancer? Read This.
If there’s a trick to building a freelance business, it’s focusing on value. Whenever you listen to experienced freelancers (the ones who’ve been running successful businesses for 10, 15, even 20 or 30 years) talking about how they’ve survived and thrived, that value concept is going to come up. That’s because value is everything. Value […]
Black Bloggers Need to be More Than “Bloggers”
Every time I see someone say they’re working on business goals as a blogger, a little piece of me winces. It’s not because blogging isn’t important or powerful…it is, I’ve started a whole business around it and still do it myself. It’s because too often, when people are talking about blogging on its own, they’re […]
Exploiters vs. Partners…Are your clients taking advantage of you?
I just dropped a survival client that was getting on my last nerve. If you want to get caught up, they ended up getting me through a few tight months after a pretty large retainer client dropped me (and after I’d been slipping on my marketing), so I’m glad I found them, but honestly? They […]
Intro to Value (Read this even if you’re employed…especially if you’re employed)
There’s an uncomfortable little truth to freelancing that I think some of us are just starting to accept. It’s a truth that’s so fundamental to business, that eventually, even employed people are going to have to start paying closer attention to it. It’s pretty straightforward and might be a tad confusing at the same time, […]
Prospecting: The Freelance Habit You Didn’t Know You Needed
One thing I will give employment credit for…it does package up work nice and neat. That’s what keeps people hooked. That’s what keeps people running back…work just sitting there waiting for you without you having to think about where it comes from. It’s the hardest thing to walk away from. That little fact right there? […]
You Have Options.
Leaving employment was a long process for me, but a few moments helped push that process along. The ones that pushed hardest were the overt efforts to remind me that I’m Black and that that fact could always be used against me. The last business trip I took was the last for a reason. Everything […]
Why “When can I quit my job?” is the Last Question You Should be Asking.
Updated 2/88/2020 There’s a couple of questions that you won’t see me answering much around here at BlackFreelance. The first is almost anything contract-related (because I’m not a lawyer…just know you should have one.) The second is when you should quit your job, and that’s for a couple reasons. First, I’ve never done it myself. […]
Supporting Black Businesses: A New Opportunity for Black Writers (Part 1)
I sat down to write a quick blog post after a conversation on Twitter this morning and it kind of…exploded into a 4-part series. So we’re going to be having a long conversation about the opportunities freelancers have to support Black businesses, a few critical truths that we all need to accept if we want […]
10 Business Truths Every Freelancer Needs to Understand
This post will help you with Phase 3 of the BlackFreelance Foundations Workbook…if you haven’t started yours yet, download it now! Most freelance frustration starts with misunderstanding something about business. Anytime I hear someone say they’re frustrated with not earning enough, not getting clients, or not knowing where to focus, once we dig a little […]