• Are Your Clients Really Getting Your Best? from Men With Pens.
• Teri Vlassopoulos blogs about choosing the name of her new short story collection.
• Lija at The Writer’s Pet writes about Fifth Business, a favourite novel we have in common!
• An article about the writing advice industry at the Globe & Mail.

Are you meeting your clients’ expectations?

Despite the dramatic, TV-movie-style ending of that intro, really – are you sure? It’s not always in our nature (as freelancers, humans, what have you) to look a gift horse in the mouth. This means we may be so uplifted by a smoothly-running project that we don’t realize we could actually be underperforming. Maybe you forgot you’re not charging this client for revisions. Maybe you overlooked a small portion of a certain deliverable. Maybe a deadline is coming up sooner than you think and you need more input from the client. These things are often small, but important to remember.

Ask your client. Check your contract.

Is your client happy with your work? Ask! Check your proposal or contract to make sure there are no surprises on either end. Pay attention to every deliverable and every deadline. Consider performing a task ahead of time. There’s no harm in being awesome, right?

We’ve all been in a honeymoon period in some relationship or another, where you didn’t care if the other person ate loudly or made bad jokes in public. That doesn’t mean they weren’t problems for you. The thing is, would you rather it be addressed now, or when you’ve been together for years?

Why is it important to charge interest on overdue payments?

As a freelancer, you may not have a steady stream of income like in a traditional 9-5 job. You rely on the prompt payments of your clients to pay your own bills. Aside from the time frame in which to pay (30 days, 60 days, etc), charging interest on overdue payments is critical to include in your invoice. If an invoice is late, you can then issue another one for the interest rate. It gives you a bit of compensation for the time you were waiting for your payment.

How much interest should I charge?

Take a look at what others in your industry and region charge. Consult your local government agencies for business to make sure you’re doing everything above board (charging interest can actually be criminal in some places if you do it wrong). Personally, I’ve seen interest rates that range from 1.5% – 2% per month. Depending on the total of your invoice, that might not seem like much, but at least it’s something. Plus, it tends to prioritize invoices in harried Accounts Payable departments.

Things to keep in mind

For a freelancer, it can be especially frustrating to have overdue invoices, but don’t charge into it with guns blazing. Check the contract you and your client signed to ensure there’s nothing in there to preclude you charging interest on an overdue invoice. Consult an accountant or business lawyer to make sure you’re doing everything by the book, check what your rights are, and what to do next. And most of all – don’t burn any bridges. An overdue invoice doesn’t necessarily have to mean an irrevocably damaged relationship.

Further reading about charging interest on overdue invoices:

Collecting debts (Canada)

Charging interest on late payments (UK)

Late payment in commercial transactions (EU)

]]> http://skgarner.com/2009/08/the-most-important-part-of-a-freelancers-invoice/feed/ 0 http://skgarner.com/2009/08/why-spelling-and-grammar-matters-for-freelancers/ http://skgarner.com/2009/08/why-spelling-and-grammar-matters-for-freelancers/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:00:00 +0000 Samantha http://www.skgarner.com/?p=20 Those of you who know what a spelling nerd I am won’t be suprirsed when I say: using proper spelling and grammar is just as important as the client work you do as a freelancer.

Yes, I may be biased, but I believe it’s true that if you don’t consider your spelling and grammar, the rest of your work will suffer. There’s one simple reason for that.

You will appear unprofessional and careless if your spelling is bad

I don’t mean the occasional mistake here and there (“Occasional” is one word I personally always mess up). I mean emails littered with spelling errors and grammatical mixups. Imagine you are the client and you email your freelancer a question about the project you’re working on. The email you get back is full of so many spelling mistakes and poorly-constructed sentences that you have to read it twice to understand. How would your opinion of the freelancer change?

Take your time with every email

Emails and instant messages are immediate forms of communication, but take a couple of minutes to review every message before you hit Send. It’s been my experience that really badly-constructed emails and letters are a result of the writer rushing through it. Read over your email or message and make sure that all the client’s questions are answered and your relevant points have been made. Read it out loud to make sure it flows well. Look for obvious errors, but also watch out for spelling mistakes that spell checker programs might not catch because, technically, they’re not spelled wrong. These include they’re/their/there and you’re/your mixups – and my personal favourite: it’s/its. Someone I know reads each word backwards – she says that it helps misspellings jump out at her.

Nobody’s expecting perfection

Everyone makes spelling and grammar mistakes, and your client will understand that. The important thing is to just take care with the things you write. It’s one of the most important things you can do to improve your reputation and put forth an image that is just as professional as the work you do.

I wrote an article on Suite 101 called Communications Skills for the Self-Employed for anyone who might be interested to learn more.

Image courtesy of stock.xchng user dotlizard.

Logos are a visual calling card

Don’t have a logo? You should. Yes, even if you are a humble freelance writer working out of your modest home office. A logo is a visual link between you and your potential clients. While a person can look at a painting and automatically associate it with its creator, writers aren’t quite so lucky. Sure, you can see words, but you don’t really glance at a page and know who wrote it, do you?

Logos increase your credibility and visibility with prospective and existing clients. Logos also let people know the business or person behind them is a professional, investing money in their brand.

How can I make a logo?

The good news is, logos don’t have to cost an arm and a leg. If you have graphic design skills, even minor ones (like me!), you can make your own logo. If you have a friend who’s a graphic designer, you may be able to sweet-talk your way into a lovely logo (The amount of sweet-talk depends on the rate your friend will give you, of course. Don’t rip anyone off!). Of course, you could always approach a traditional graphic designer that isn’t a friend. Depending on the designer, prices range from very reasonable to fairly pricey. If you like a designer’s style and how well they understand you and your business, it’s worth it to spend money on a good logo. It’s an investment in something that will often be the very first representation of you as a freelancer.

What should my logo look like?

Your logo should represent the tone of your business and your own personality. For my own logo, I wanted to stay away from traditional “writing business visuals” like pens or typewriters, but still include something to indicate my business relates to words. I chose the ampersand, my favourite typographical mark (yes, it’s nerdy to have a favourite typographical mark. Good thing I’m a writer, huh?) and used a more abstract representation of it. It’s still recognizable, but not
overpowering. I wanted the eye to go straight to my initials, which I presented in an almost monogram style, referencing the monogram’s use in the Middle Ages to signify a craftsperson’s work (okay, so I’m a history nerd too). I chose the font because it’s solid but still has interesting, almost playful details.

Because it’s meant to be a visual link, your logo doesn’t necessarily have to have your name or business name on it. In my case, I don’t have a proper business name and felt my full name was too long for a logo – another reason behind my choice of using my initials.

The next steps

Of course, once you have your logo, you can then expand into stationery materials. Your own letterhead, envelopes, business cards, etc. Think about how lovely and cohesive everything will look. Logos are the gateway to unstoppable business professionalism!

In my opinion, it’s very much worth it! If your portfolio page is the first thing your future clients see of your work, you need to be sure it’s representative of what you do.

In getting this newly-designed site ready, I reviewed my portfolio page for the first time since I created it. It was mostly relevant, with links to favourite articles of mine I’d written for various websites and blog networks. What I did notice, however, was a link to a book review I wrote for a local weekly in 2006. Not very web-writery of me, right? I mean, yes, the review is online but it’s not web writing. For that reason, I decided to take it down. I don’t really review books (in fact, I quite dislike it) and I don’t believe it does much to show prospective clients my strengths.

While I was at it, I added a few more links to Suite 101 articles I’d written. I chose ones I felt were my strongest and showed a range of what I could do. I figured that alone was a good enough reason to break my self-imposed Only Link to Three Articles rule.

By doing those two things, I hope I have focused my portfolio page and made it more relevant and representative of my work.

What do you think? How often do you think auditing your portfolio page is necessary?