 Well good morning ladies and gentlemen welcome to word camp Miami Well, give me just a minute. I'm going to repeat that one more time for for the video. I'm waiting for the signal I got started a little little anxious this morning to get going Let's wait a little bit Give it a second We're ready. Okay. Once again. Good morning everyone. Welcome to word camp Miami. It's a my excellent It's an honor and privilege to kick this off this year at our freelance workshop I know we have a mix of individuals here that that do all kinds of different work I'd like to just ask For starters, how many people in this room are freelancing full-time right now? Keep your hands up. That means you don't get a w2 form from anybody You're freelancing full-time and how many are freelancing part-time keep your hands up everybody I just want to see how many freelancers we have so the rest of you that are in here are dreaming, right? You're dreaming about freelance. You're dreaming about success You're dreaming about what you want to do and success is a great place to start we want to start with What is success success is different for everybody right to some people it's about wealth It's about prosperity. This is a symbol of success to others. It's safety and security It's money in the bank To some it's how many employees they have how many office locations around the world These are all different versions of success to different people the summits the American dream Put a white picket fence and a four-legged friend in this picture and you've got the typical American dream that success to me Success is not about getting emojis to work on my phone. It's actually about being happy. It's happiness the late Author and motivational speaker zig-ziggler said there's three things that all people want in life One is happiness to be happy To is health you want to feel good and three is to be reasonably prosperous Now I know there's some of you in this room that want to be unreasonably prosperous, but that's a whole nother topic in and of itself We want to be reasonably prosperous because we need to have money money needs to be in the equation we can't live without money and Taking that fact into account. We want to make sure that Money is made if you're not making money You're doing a hobby. You're doing something that you love and it's called a hobby as soon as you're making money with that hobby You're freelancing So why do we freelance? What are the reasons that we choose to freelance there's a lot of them one of them of course to make money, right? Why give their money all to your boss if you can do it? You're doing the work might as well keep it for yourself another reason To be the boss. It's one of the main reasons that people want they would say I want to be the boss I want to sit at the top of the heap. That's why I freelance lifestyle Lot of people freelance for lifestyle and if you notice in this picture a very realistic shot And the reason it's realistic is you can see how much work. She's actually getting done sitting there on the beach with a pina colada There's nothing happening on that screen, but the reality is if you do freelance You do have the opportunity to travel you can go with your friends or family somewhere But chances are you'll be sitting in the hotel room working in the dark on your laptop while they're out on the beach But lifestyle is one of the options and reasons that we freelance and of course balance We're able to balance our work our life our family our friends We can easily balance that when we don't have an employer that's requiring us to drive to downtown Miami every morning up from Broward County The reason I freelance freedom Freedom freedom to do what I want to work with who I want and on what projects I want Some of you may know William Wallace from the Braveheart movie We do share a few traits hair not being one of them, but We both come from a common background. There's no royalty in our blood My parents are Western European immigrants that came over in the 1960s They've lived the American dream by working hard and being prudent with their finances. I don't have a computer science degree I don't have a super high IQ. I'm average. I'm not in Mensa. I Just had a desire to work independently for myself from a very young age and it took a while to get there but that's What I've always wanted to do and now I'm doing that in order to tell this story I've got to go back a little bit to before I was such a geek Today I spent my days eight to ten hours on the computer I'm working in WordPress all day long working in different project management systems CRM systems But I wasn't always such a geek long time ago I Used to hang out with the cool kids and I know I was a cool kid Because I'm the one right there with that badass Darth Vader iron-on t-shirt in Florida wearing a black t-shirt that's a plastic iron-on nice and sweaty But apparently in the 1980s When short shorts and tube socks were all the rage I was fortunate enough to have parents that had the foresight to see that the personal computer was going to revolutionize the world and they Luckily for my brother and I bought an Atari 800 computer This bad boy had 48 kilobytes of RAM no internal storage and 256 colors, I think So that's that's where my passion started Some of you in this room may have met my brother. He comes to word camps here and there or Lando He's been to this one several years. He's not here today. Fortunately, so please don't tell him that I've used this picture That's my older brother in the front on the keyboard and that was me What I thought was taking lots of notes He was programming. I remember him programming a parser and a tarry basic way back then I later I looked at this picture a little more closely lower the lights sure Okay Do I do I need to go do I need to go back to the short shorts and tube socks? All right, sorry about that there there we go All right So and there's my Darth Vader t-shirt. Just so you know So this is this is us in our room getting started and I thought that I was taking notes in this picture But upon further inspection, I realized that no I was actually holding a joystick So I was most like playing a game Maybe something he'd created to move a cursor around and change the colors something very simple and basic But this is where the the passion for computing started for me many years ago in the mid 80s at some point and What happened was shortly thereafter? I lost interest in computers and I wasn't really sure what happened, but I just fell out of it I found interest in other things and as I got older. I realized doctors had a medical term for this they called it puberty and Then I realized oh there was no interest in computers. I had interested in something else It took a while for me to get back in and it wasn't till after I'd graduated college. I had a degree in business from FAU and I was working for Lenar Homes full-time as a manager wearing a suit and tie to work every day and hated it I had a great title lousy salary nice office lousy salary And I got the Wall Street Journal delivered to my desk every morning and I was reading about I Say kids, but there were just other people younger than I was Making millions during that first internet boom in the late 90s mid and late 90s and I thought why did I miss this? What happened? I used to love computing. I used to love working with computers the technology So I took it upon myself while working full-time to learn HTML To learn Photoshop and to start learning about databases and connecting to databases online through what was ASP at the time It was Microsoft's language Active server pages and I got started doing that and within a few years I was able to rip off my tie tell my boss to take a hike and go out and start working for an agency For several years. I worked for a few different agencies and startups moved around jumped around a little bit learning the ropes and in 2004 I started my own company South Florida Web Studio. I started this company Myself and two contractors. So we were all freelancing What happened was in 2004 there was a real estate bubble, right if we can all remember back then Real estate was booming and our business was booming as well and we went in two years From myself and two contractors to seven employees So we moved offices. We added servers. We added equipment It was just gangbusters non-stop very exciting very fun and then 2007 at the spring of 2007 I lost 80% of my business in about 60 days It just stopped we had a lot of real estate clients and they just all pulled the plug at the same time They saw what was happening. They knew a little bit before the rest of the economy in 2008 So in 2007 they stopped doing their marketing They just pulled the plug on all the services and it took us a while to adjust We had to downsize we had to move things around and by 2010 2011 I was freelancing alone and I was working with contractors and I've been doing that ever since and I can tell you right now I actually make more money. I have more freedom and more happiness in my life Freelancing and working with contractors. I can work on bigger projects and I can work on the projects that I want to work on So how do we get started freelancing? How do we move from that that passion that we love that hobby that we really want to do We got to have a plan We start off with a plan and then we can't just have a plan and sit on it. We actually have to take action Periodically we need to evaluate that action that plan and see okay How are we doing? Are we are we living up to the plan that we've established and then repeat repeat that process? And if you're just freelancing part-time on the side It's good to look and know well How much do I need to actually make doing this in order to quit my day job and do this full-time? So that's why you do that evaluation process Today we're going to talk about three sections In a freelancing before you begin what you need to do getting started and moving forward I'm going to touch on all these topics and the rest of the speakers. We have nine other great speakers talking today They're going to elaborate on these areas as well and tell their own stories So before you begin you need to have a plan at The very least you need to know your customers The service or product that you're offering your customers Estimate your revenue and estimate your expenses. That is a bare minimum Don't just jump into freelancing say oh, you know what I can do some social media for you I'll charge you three hundred dollars and we'll get started have have a plan know what it's going to take what it's Going to cost what what you're going to need to buy The links that are down here are kind of long So I just link them into my slideshow they will be available on my website and on Slideshare as well as I think word camp TV So you'll have access to these these resources as well top 10 business plan resources for free It's a great resource from ink magazine One of them is the is the hundred dollar startup. They have a one-page that just lists Quick items to put in about your customers your service your revenue and your expenses Obviously, you can elaborate on that much more and get very detailed into your business plan knowing your customers knowing your market Having pro forma statements, but this is basics to get started live plan is a is online software That lets you do basically the same thing The next thing protect yourself before you begin you want to make sure you incorporate in Florida Sunbiz org is the place to do that Incorporate do an LLC an escort do something so that you're not liable if something should happen to your business and you in The bad chance that get sued by someone they can't come in they can't take your assets your house if you're an escort Make sure your accounting is in place Haven't accounted sometimes your accountant can do the incorporation for you if you have one that will do that most of them will We use QuickBooks online. I'm not a big fan of Intuit, but I've been using them for years So I use QuickBooks online. I do my own bookkeeping I like to know how we're doing as a business and I like to look at it periodically if you choose to use a bookkeeper That's great, but understand that you should know What a profit and loss statement is you should be able to look at your balance sheet know where you are Look at your income statements know some of these basics and I believe Frank course So we'll be talking about taxes and accounting later. So he'll get into that a lot more detail Use written contracts. You want to make sure that you always use written contracts that protects yourself It it lets it's it's not that a handshake and a smile is no good That's a great way to start your relationship But a written contract details what you're going to offer and give to your customer and what you expect in return I've been in business for 11 years. I've worked with some clients for 11 years. I still provide written contracts There can be times where we think a job is going to take a month and for some reason unknown it takes six months Now all of a sudden we look back and we oh, do you remember that conversation we had no I don't remember it, but I can look back in the contract and see oh this is what we said we were going to do and Retain an attorney have your attorney review your contracts if you're using a template if you use the same contract for every job That's great. Have your attorney review that make sure that it's solid and you're covered And it's also good to have an attorney Available when you need them if you need them here's a couple more resources like I said Sunbiz org Quickbooks online and 10 web design contract templates. That's from Mashable It's a great place to start with your contracts and then move forward from there Once you get started one of the first things You want to get paid? Make sure you have separate bank accounts You don't want to be putting your income directly into your personal account The IRS doesn't like that and your account won't like that. So just have a separate bank account set up Accept credit cards. It's 2016. Make sure that you're able to accept credit cards. I'm guilty of this myself I don't like to pay three percent Just for processing a payment but ultimately the administrative tasks and headaches that you go through with checks and collections and all of that can be alleviated Mostly by accepting credit cards and use an invoice system. I still have contractors Some of them may be in this room that I work with that send me Microsoft Word templated invoices There are services like fresh books and harvest that set up the invoices for you They track them. They'll follow up on them. They even let you pay through them Stripe and PayPal are of course our ways to accept credit cards But fresh books and harvest are invoicing systems that also allow you to accept credit cards through them As you're getting started you want to track your time your service business You need to track your time. You want to make sure that you're always aware of What you're worth even if you're billing by the project you want to know how long it's how long you're spending doing that Mark and I can't remember his last name He's from server press. He's gonna be speaking later on today about How to make profits and not just more work for yourself, and I'm sure he's gonna be talking about time tracking in that presentation Time tracking is important when you're freelancing many times it can go be feast or famine and recurring revenue is a great way to Flatten those bumps in the road Georgina Lewis will explain how to go about creating recurring revenue streams Later on today as well. We use an internal system for time tracking one that we've used for many years We use base camp for project management But there are third-party tools that allow you to do time tracking within base camp Harvest and fresh books that I mentioned earlier also have timers I know if you're if you're a designer in here, you probably say time tracking inhibits my creativity Well, there's little start and stop timers. Just turn them on forget about them Let them run be as creative as you want. Hopefully you'll remember to come back and shut it off As you're getting started you need to make sure you're marketing and networking It's one thing you do not want to forget establish your brand Karen Demek will be talking later today about establishing your brand for your freelance You need to create a marketing strategy Don't just take $500 and throw it into ad words or Facebook ads and see what happens have a strategy in place If you are not comfortable doing that because you're more comfortable coding JavaScript Well, I'm sure there's people in this room. How many people in this room do marketing? See your other hands find someone who does marketing. They'll create a strategy for you and stick with it Always be networking Okay, if you're going to go out and freelance on yourself You need to understand the value and importance of personal referrals our best clients come from personal referrals I learned this through the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 2007 when we lost our business and it diminished Severely I joined the chamber thinking I need to do something and what I really learned from there was when you go to a networking event Sometimes you see your friends there and it's great to go over and say hi to them But if you're really there to network go to the people that you don't know at lunch today Sit at a table of people that you don't know so that you can introduce yourself to them Let them know what you do and find out what they do That's networking and keep your business cards with you all the time Moving forward client relations is the client always right? No, that's clients wrong. I don't want to say the client's wrong customer is not always right the market is always right there are a problem clients and I can tell you that Client relations are so important that we have four speakers today that are going to be speaking about different aspects of managing Expectations and client relations. We've got David yard Mindy post-off Adam Susie and Steve Zengar that are all going to be speaking in some shape or form about Client relations or expectations Managing and exceeding expectations is huge when you exceed your clients expectations and give them more than they ask for you build loyalty You build trust Steve Jobs was famous for doing this at every presentation. He always had a little something more He always gave the crowd a little something more and made him fanatical Nordstrom's retailers is known for this as well You can return an item over a year after you've purchased it even if you didn't purchase it from their store So make sure you can exceed your clients expectations Lastly being the boss You think you fired your boss right you're out on your own But you're always going to have a boss the difference is now you have multiple bosses And the good part about that is that it's much easier to get rid of one of those one of those customers and clients To replace them with another it's much easier to do that than to replace your full-time employer with a whole new job and Later on today Louise Treadwell will be talking about getting rid of those pesky problem clients and avoiding them in the first place Owning your own company or freelancing is fun and exciting. It's exhilarating To be your own boss and call the shots. However, it can be lonely at the top You are responsible for everything the buck stops here. If you're not comfortable with that, maybe freelancing isn't for you You need to manage your own time You need to know when you need to be networking when you need to be marketing when you need to be collecting When you need to be doing your accounting and when you need to be working as well As I said before it can be lonely at the top if you're sitting in your house working from a home office You may spend the day as I did for about two years Talking to clients and customers and that's all I talked to and then my two-year-old and You need to get out you need to find peers people that you can balance ideas off of Co-working spaces are great for that. It helps you to find balance Access space is my home. It's in Fort Lauderdale on Andrews and Las Olas Fantastic co-working space. There are co-working spaces in just about every major city I know Miami windwood has the lab. You've got pipeline downtown. We work on the beach. There are Co-working spaces in every community look them up and check them out. They'll give you a free day or two to try them out Again just to reiterate hobby to freelance you need to have a plan Take action evaluate and repeat Failure is fine. Sometimes it's even Praised what failure means is that you did something you made an attempt you got off your butt and actually tried something Okay, it didn't work out learn from your mistake and try it again It's okay. You just have to keep continue trying until you succeed Having a plan will help you in that success and that's why it's the first item on my list Remember to go for whole life success not just business or finances be wary of the high price of Putting too much focus on any single aspect of your life in exclusion of everything else Go for balance in all aspects of your life that are important to you And you can take your hobby and move it to freelance and eventually full-time My slides will be up on this link shortly within about an hour They'll also be at so fly web calm and on word camp TV Thank you, I believe we have a short break and then we're gonna have Ben Stoffel Rosales come talk to us about pricing strategies and Getting paid short break will be about five minutes. So it's very short. That's any questions I will be here all weekend if you see me if you see my brother stay away from him But if you see if you see me feel free to ask me any questions. Thanks