Business: How to Outsource to Save 15+ Hours Per Week [Blog]
If you stick with it long enough, there will come a time where your time becomes valuable enough to begin outsourcing monotonous tasks. If you've already reached that point and had issues with virtual assistants, this blog from Justin Welsh is for you.
He walks through a simple 5-step system to easily outsource and automate tasks without worrying about if they're being done right.
Money: How to Save Money on Your Side Hustle and Self-Employed Taxes [Article]
I had the opportunity to chat with Myriam Robinson from Morning Brew about what freelancers and self-employed people need to know about taxes. They're confusing, but you need to know how to effectively manage & reduce them or you're leaving money on the table. A few highlights:
“I usually review transactions weekly just to make sure everything's in order with no unexpected expenses.”
An example of an unexpected expense? “We had to fax something—which was just insane in itself. We used an online fax service and it was 25 cents. Later, we got billed $90 for a subscription to this thing, and we had no idea about it. Little things can always come up, especially with subscriptions.”
Strategy: How Much You Should Charge for Brand Deals [Blog]
Justin Moore, known as the Sponsorship Coach, reveals 5 different factors to consider when pricing and negotiating brand deals.
I think it's a mistake to have standard pricing or a rate sheet.
There are so many factors that go into a partnership such as:
• How many posts
• What platforms
• Photo/video
• Dedicated or integrative videos
• Your costs
In June 2020, I quit my stable 9-5 job in pursuit of creative entrepreneurship. Several coworkers thought I was crazy and I was scared to tell family about my plans because I couldn't have any outside negativity or doubts.
What nobody knew was that I barely viewed the leap as a risk.
I had carefully planned my exit for 2 years and knew exactly how I was going to make the transition and support myself if anything didn't go according to plan.
Luckily I did this because of course, almost nothing went according to plan.
The business launch was delayed causing me to burn extra savings, growth didn't happen as fast as expected, my car was stolen, I forgot how expensive car insurance was - there were many things that happened that weren't in my "plan", but that doesn't mean the plan was worthless.
Without a plan, I never would've been able to take the leap because I wouldn't have had the confidence to do so.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this transition from stability to the unknown, especially as more and more people begin to pursue their passions online, and I'm a believer that a majority of success comes down to planning (which enables confident actions).
A quick example from my own situation:
I knew I wanted to be a financial planner (how fitting) coming out of college, but I couldn't land a job anywhere because I didn't have a network of rich old people with a lot of money to invest. After doing my own research, I learned that it was possible to start your own financial planning firm. I read a blog from another planner that said she launched her firm with $12,000 in expenses in the first year.
This was phase one of my planning exercise.
I did research, figured out how much I needed to have saved, I came up with a rough timeline of when I wanted to start, and then I worked backwards to figure out how much I needed to save each month to reach that goal.
By doing just a little bit of planning, I reduced my risk of starting the business my a great amount because I would have enough savings to not require any income for the business for a year. This would give me time to figure things out and find my footing as an entrepreneur.
I then took the time to start business planning which included creating a marketing plan, a content plan, my value proposition, service models, etc.
All of that stuff was in motion before I even started the business or quit my job.
Then when the time came and I was ready to launch, I asked myself "what's the worst that could happen?".
I hated my job, I had done plenty of planning, I knew how I was going to go to market, and I had savings to support myself - it felt like a no-brainer.
And it was. Nothing was going to stop me from starting because I had reduced all of the risk that usually comes with starting something on your own simply by creating a plan.
If you're starting a business, you may be pressed for income due to a lack of savings or you may struggle to find traction because you hadn't thought through your business model and service offerings. Even with planning a lot of things changed and I had to pivot many times, but having a plan gave me the confidence I needed to take the leap.
And that's all it comes down to, right?
You'll never know if you have the ability to succeed unless you take the leap first, and planning is the only way I know how to bridge the confidence gap.
Where else in your life would you benefit from planning?
The ultimate goal of planning is to create clarity that allows you to be confident in the next steps so that you can begin taking action. Planning will force you to ask yourself questions that you may not have thought about before, and those answers will influence how you approach the next steps.
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Freelance Finds: NPR Music released a "How to Pitch Us" guide for freelance writers (via Kaitlyn Arford)
