AnywhereMan

After last week’s discussion on Freelance Jam – specifically the portion about billing based on hours versus a flat fee – I’ve been analyzing my entire billing system. For the past three years I’ve billed based on hours and it’s worked fine.

However, in the past few months I’ve been taking on bigger projects. I also feel like I’ve dramatically improved my design and development process. And I’m also realizing that the better I define the project scope and strategy up front, the better the project turns out. I’d love to invest more time into that but I’ve always done things somewhat “open-ended”  (read charged by the hour) to allow clients to change their minds along the way. But that seems to be incredibly in-efficient, especially when working on larger projects.

I still don’t have a complete plan for making the switch to flat fees, but it’s looking like that’s the direction I will go. Herre are a few of the articles I’ve been reading that are making me re-think the whole billing thing:

• Why I Believe in Pricing Work Based on Value (by my Freelance Jam co-host Brian Casel)
• 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Charge By The Hour (some very good points I hadn’t considered)
• Why You Should Never Charge Hourly (great idea to charge even more if it seems like a high-maintenance client)

So if anything, in Freelance Jam’s short existence so far, it’s helping me evaluate my very own freelance business. Hopefully it’s doing the same to some extent for our viewers.

I used yesterday, July 5th, as a chance to make some serious progress on the new version of my Lift Development website. I built the original about 3 years ago and my business has evolved quite a bit since then. I’m also moving forward with some new branding so everything (business cards, apps, website) needs to be updated to reflect this change.

Using everyone else’s day off gave me an excuse to devote the day to my own project. Whether it’s a holiday or a weekend, sometimes that’s the only way my in-house projects make any progress. However, if I would simply commit an hour here and there to my stuff…as in actually make time on my schedule…I wouldn’t need to cut into time that might otherwise be used for relaxation and recreation.

My point is this: Treat yourself like a client as much as you can.

Set deadlines and goals for your own stuff. It’s important! In the case of my website, it’s one of the first points of contact I have with a potential client. Therefore, it’s as essential as anything else that I do. I need to treat it as a high-priority task.

What are you working on in-house that may need to get bumped up the priority list a bit? Can you devote a few hours a week to it? Make an effort to schedule it: write it down and add it to your calendar.