Do you want to know how your business compares to that of other creative professionals?
There isn’t a lot of research undertaken in the creative world, but every year Creative Business does a survey of business conditions in the North…

If you’re trying to learn how to write a proposal, this post will help.
Because I’m convinced that the key technique to writing a graphic design proposal that gets you the job (this goes for a web design proposal or…

There are an awful lot of people out there who do what you do, right?
So how do you (first) find what’s different about you and (second) highlight it for your prospects and clients so they can choose you?
That’s…

Lately, I’ve been offering a new a la carte service of email mentoring — which is essentially answering marketing questions without a full consultation. (If you’re interested in that, email me at ilise@marketing-mentor.com). Here’s one I got this week:
Question…

I notice that most people come to their first Creative Freelancer Conference because they’re enticed by the speaker lineup and all the best practices they will learn to grow their business.
But they come back year after year (this June…

It’s the first anniversary of Bryn Mooth’s second career and she has come a long way in a short year.
As she wrote about her first year on her blog, writes4food.com, “The first year as an independent journalist and copywriter…

I sometimes wonder if growing is something that comes naturally to everybody.
Or maybe there are two types of growth: that kind happens to you, and the kind that you proactively pursue yourself.
That idea came from my interview with…

If you’ve been stiffed by a client or have outstanding payments that are way past due, add them today to the World’s Longest Invoice, the latest project from our partner, Freelancer’s Union.
They launched this project yesterday and already there…

This Monday, April 30, is the last and final early bird deadline for the Creative Freelancer Conference and HOW Design Live. (Register here.)
From what past attendees tell me, there are 2 main reasons to attend:

To learn from the…

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston is rapidly approaching and the early bird deadline has been extended to April 30! (Register here now.)
For today’s speaker podcast, I interviewed David Baker from ReCourses, who previewed his session,…

I got this message recently from Kelsey Grafton of Lewiston, Idaho, one of the newly-minted freelancers who will be attending the Creative Freelancer Conference in Boston this June 21-22 (early bird deadline is Monday, April 30):
Thank you for welcoming…

At the end of my conversation with Julie Goldsberry about her Operation Refrigerator last week, she asked me if I had been in touch with Crystal Reynolds.
I met Crystal last year at Creative Freelancer Conference but hadn’t heard from…

You might remember a post from last Fall about Julie Goldsberry, a moonlighting freelancer in Chicago and her “Operation Refrigerator.” It was in response to her favorite speaker from last year’s Creative Freelancer Conference, Luke Mysse and his “double dog…

Nobody loves to do proposals but sometimes you have to, especially when your dream prospect says, “Please send me a proposal.”
In a recent interview about the proposal that has won Chicago-based design firm, Rogue Element a full 67% of…

It seems like at least once a week, there’s another article in a major paper predicting and/or observing the rise of the self employed.
We’ve seen it coming for more than 5 years, when in 2008 we launched the first…

The 5th Annual Creative Freelancer Conference, June 21-22 in Boston is rapidly approaching and the early bird deadline extended to April 30!
For today’s podcast interview with a speaker, we have consultant, Marcia Hoeck, giving us a preview of her session,…

It’s one thing to know how to get testimonials. But don’t you love it when people freely send them to you?
It makes you feel good, of course, but there’s no real marketing benefit unless you know how to get…

Following yesterday’s post from Tom Tumbusch on unexpected outcomes from guest blogging, here’s a post from Jody Shyllberg, CFC veteran and owner of JS Graphics, about another type of unexpected outcome from a 2.5-year old guest blog post!
Waaay back…

I want to respond with a counterpoint to the recent guest blog post about whether freelancers should work for free.
The obvious and simple answer to the question is: no. And that is there are many who make that argument…