Paul D. Jacobs – Freelance Web Programmer

Lower-quality clients suck. All they focus on is how little they can pay. They make unreasonable demands for the amount of work they want you to do and how fast they want it done. And they’ll inevitably ask you for designs that you don’t really enjoy creating.

Does this sound familiar? Then chances are you have suffered from working for clients like these. We all have at some point, especially when starting out.

So how do you avoid working for lower-quality clients? You attract higher-quality ones. How? Well, you’re in luck: there are 3 simple ways to attract higher-quality clients.

There aren’t any tricks involved. It’s simply adjusting your attitude and approach towards clients. You stand your ground and don’t compromise on what you’re worth and who you’re willing to work with. By doing so, you’ll be well on your way to attracting higher-quality clients that you actually want to work with.

Without further ado, here are 3 simple ways to attract higher-quality clients:

Read the rest of this post on SpeckyBoy.com

The modern freelancer has a platter of tasks and responsibilities dumped onto their head every day. The masses assume the work-from-home lifestyle to be a refreshing break from the corporate office, though at times we see this is not the case. Freelancing shifts most power into the hands of designers and developers to create and work with whoever they want. It’s a big step towards running your own business and provides enormous potential in regards to income and professional experience.

Among the downfalls of this path can be poor time management and lack of any fixed schedule. After all, working from your home computer in pajamas every Monday can make temptations seem lucrative. Working for yourself and earning your own money is one of the most liberating acts available to us in modern society. In this post I’ll discuss a few ideas I’ve learned over my time freelancing to stay organized and on-task.

Read the res of this post on Noupe.com

Freelancers are somewhat of a singular breed according to some of the outside perceptions held about us. We hear it all the time from friends and family, even at times from near strangers, that they could never work for themselves from home and actually be productive. Without some predetermined hierarchical structure that pits someone above them demanding results from them each day they are in the office. They are amazed at the power of will that we seem to exhibit, without any pressure from the higher-ups to keep us motivated. But they fail to see that we are motivated by the need to remain in business for ourselves, and so the motivation to keep on task is generally already in place.

Most freelancers have a powerful need to eat and have a roof over their heads (okay, so less over the heads and more over the workstation or proverbial power centers), and still there are motivators driving us forward. So for freelancers reaching that motivation is not so much of a problem, but holding on to it can be. As most people are aware, freelancers tend to work long hours and that can often lead to the more pressing problem for freelancers: burnout. When that virtual flame of initiative and drive has flickered and faded leaving us with nothing but its sad, smothered remains as a reminder of what we should be doing, but can’t.

Read the rest of this post on Noupe.com