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Tag: work at home

Tips for Clients Who Contract Work-At-Home Professionals
If you are a work-at-home professional, you’ll want to read Tips For Work-At-Home Professionals. If you are a client, continue reading the article below for some useful advice when conducting business online.
1. Do your research. Would you buy the first house you see? Would you lease the first vehicle you come across? Some people spend more time deciding on which brand of sugar to purchase than they do which individual or company they desire to entrust their online presence to! Just because someone has good pricing, good terms, and a nice portfolio doesn’t necessarily mean they are reputable. Find out what their policies are regarding references. Ask around about them — social media is a powerful tool. Search Twitter using keywords that match their business name. Look through their portfolio and see if you can contact a random client by locating their website to inquire about their experience. Whether it was wonderful or horrible, most people are more than happy to divulge that information, especially if the company happens to offer referral bonuses!
2. Be reasonable and perhaps even somewhat flexible. More and more people are doing business with individuals who work at home. Why? Because generally they are more accessible, less expensive, and willing to go the extra mile for their clientele. I have no problem catering to a 2am client with a crisis if I happen to still be awake. This being said, one must also take into consideration that in addition to being businesspeople, we also have lives — lives which, from time to time may interfere with our accessibility and perhaps even our work schedule. We all know that most benefits require us to make small sacrifices… one of the sacrifices you may have to make in order to reap the mountain of benefits you experience from contracting work-at-home business owners’ services is that you may experience delays. You should expect any delays to be communicated to you as quickly as possible. If you are asked to extend the target deadline and it is at all feasible for you to do so, you should be willing to grant an extension for appropriate circumstances. You may even be able to talk them into including a little something extra for the inconvenience :) I’ve been personally known to extend hosting for up to an entire year for patient clients who understand that life happens!
3. Be receptive! We all have our preferences, and that’s great. There is nothing wrong with knowing exactly what you want. However, I’ve seen clients totally butcher amazing work and turning it into something the designer cringes at the thought of attaching their name to! Respect the experience and expertise of the people you trust to make your blog or website look good and give serious consideration to their insight and feedback. Let them take your ideas and translate them visually… and aesthetically. Just because you may like something doesn’t mean it looks nice and when it comes to online presence, it is important that the visual translation of your ideas ends up being something attractive and appealing. Something to basic won’t hold anyone’s attention very long, but something too busy will wear them out before they make it halfway through your site. Let the professional you choose assist you in deciding on what works — and what doesn’t! In the end, it’s always up to you, but being receptive of their input will benefit you greatly.
4. Communicate clearly and thoroughly. Explain what you want in detail and avoid supplying one-word answers or answering questions with a simple yes or no. Most of the time, when you contract services you will receive a survey of some sort or at least a simple questionnaire. This is meant to relate more information about your project and provide a more insightful glimpse into where you want to go with it. For example, answering ‘What is your favorite color?’ by saying, ‘Blue,’ or ‘Have you ever had a website or blog before?’ by saying, ‘Yes,’ doesn’t tell someone much about you. Explain what shade or shades of blue you enjoy and give a little more of an idea of the type of website or blog you’ve operated or been associated with in the past. Things like this may not seem like much to you, but they communicate critical information to us!
5. Read the terms of service or terms of use as well as any other posted policies thoroughly. If you are unable to find terms of service on a business website, request a copy prior to contracting services. Many terms stipulate that by requesting and/or approving a quote, submitting payment, or engaging in any sort of business directly with the company, you are bound to adherence to their terms regardless of whether you have read them or not… therefore, make sure you have read and fully understand them. If you have any questions, ask beforehand. If you believe the terms are unfair or will not protect your interest in the event something goes wrong, ask if their terms are negotiable. If not, keep looking until you find someone with more reasonable terms. When you feel uncomfortable, it’s always better to shop around. However, if the company has a solid reputation and a satisfaction guarantee, you are probably safe with more strict terms because any type of guarantee on services requires that they protect themselves from being taken advantage of.
Recommended reading: check out The Four C’s of Successful Working Relationships!
October 28, 2010
Tips For Work-At-Home Professionals
Being that I am a work-at-home mom, I spend a lot of time online — I go to school online, have conducted web, graphic, and virtual assistant business through eDesign-Pro since the beginning of 2005, and have developed friendships and partnerships by connections I’ve made through social media. I have a network full of other business minded mamas (and papas)! Because of the growing blogosphere and the desire of parents to be able to support their family with incomes generated from the comfort of their homes, there is a sort of “underground” economy developing through ecommerce between mom-and-dad-owned online businesses and the clients who contract our services.

Lately, I’ve recognized a complete disregard for standard business practices and it seems necessary to make a few points on both sides of the debates I’ve seen take place. Because I am a designer, many of these will cater directly to my industry but most of the advice here should easily be cross-applicable to other professions as well. If you’re a work-at-home professional, continue to the article below. If you are a client, you’ll want to read the Tips For Clients Who Contract Work-At-Home Professionals!!
1. Be professional. I had a friend tell me about an experience she had with a designer who treated her rudely, talked to her like a child because she was unfamiliar with the new platform she was moving to, and conducted business very fleetingly without any defined priorities. When you market yourself as a professional, it doesn’t matter if you are working at home or in a business environment — your practices and your communication should be defined, particular, and straightforward. Respect your clients in your dealings with them. It only takes a few seconds to proofread an email and assign an appropriate subject line. Small details like this reflect well on your business.
2. Execution is crucial. We know as work at home parents, things can — and often will — come up. When you are scheduling jobs, don’t overextend yourself. Make sure you are allowing enough wiggle room so that when life happens, it doesn’t affect your ability to deliver on time. In those times when life throws its curve balls and you have no choice in late execution, communicate unexpected delays in a timely fashion to your clients so that they aren’t caught off guard at the last moment. As soon as you know their project won’t be complete when expected, so should they! Also, know what your clients needs are when you start. If a client is meeting an event deadline for a new website launch, that information allows you to reprioritize so that important dates aren’t neglected when deciding how to rearrange projects and discerning between which ones have target dates that can be pushed back and which ones cannot.
3. Treat every client like your best ever. Word of mouth travels at the speed of light! If you make it a common practice to treat every client and prospective client as though they’ve been doing business with you for years, chances are eventually that will be the case… and more importantly, they will be more likely to confidently recommend you to others as well.
4. Develop terms of service and/or terms of use and have them readily available. Your potential clients should be able to locate and access your terms without having to request them or click some tiny little hyperlink contained in your fine print. Post your terms in a conspicuous place. This saves time for everyone involved because they should have a firm understanding of how you conduct business before even contacting you, and in the event they are unwilling to adhere to your terms, they won’t even waste time bothering to contact you in the first place. Make sure your terms are clear, concise, and reasonable. Anything too stringent may be losing you significant revenue.
5. Be willing to learn. Occasionally you will come across a client who has a project that will challenge you. When you’re met with completing a task you are not entirely familiar with or knowledgeable about, don’t be afraid of reaching out to others in your field or even consulting your favorite search engine in order to find the answers. There is a plethora of resources available online. Take advantage of them! This will help you in the future and will you to presently — and continuously — provide quality work to your clients.
Recommended reading: check out The Four C’s of Successful Working Relationships!
October 28, 2010
HOW TO: Organize Your Client Projects into Manageable Task Lists
Three words: Project Task List! If you are anything like me, you typically accept more than you should, have more going on in your life than just clients, and end up having to bounce back and forth between projects to make progress on all of your concurrent jobs simultaneously. Here is the strategy I developed over the last few weeks to keep myself productive and keep my clients happy:

LOG EVERYTHING!

It may sound like common sense to some, but to many businesswomen/men the little details get lost in the grand scheme of things. When was the last time you talked to Client #3? What was your conversation? What was that change that Client #7 wanted to make? Who was it that asked for me to return a phone call today? What price did I quote Client #4 for the additions she requested? When you have several projects going, several phone calls/emails coming in daily, and several “lines of communication” open at once, no matter how good you are at multitasking, you’re going to forget something! You will do yourself a HUGE favor by logging it all in ONE place that gives you easy access to all those little details any time you need them.

GET ORGANIZED AND BE PREPARED!

I have 5-subject notebook that is dedicated solely to work. I do love to keep track of things digitally and accessible by my computer and smartphone but I also prefer to keep my information written in a book so that I am able to jot more detailed notes immediately and organize them more efficiently. No matter how much technology improves, I’ll always believe that paper is KING ;) Why? Because I’ve had one too many overwrite, sync, and deletion mishaps to trust a digital version as my only source of information.

I do keep a very condensed version of my project tasks in GTasks, which is an app based on Google Tasks that I have added to my Android smartphone, my iPad2, and my web browser on all of my computers and syncs across all platforms. In addition, a simplified version can be accessed in my Google Apps email account. The items in GTasks are very basic and include my client’s name and the most broad task descriptions that need to be processed on each particular project. They are hierarchical and have a check box to click when a task has been completed. This is mainly for me to keep track of the main events, and to keep my clients in order according to priority which isn’t always possible in my notebook since I can’t move pages around to accommodate changes.

Here is a snapshot at the organization of my log book:
- The first subject of the notebook is strictly for correspondence logging. If I send or receive an email or phone call from a current, former, or potential client I write it in there. I write the date, time, and take notes that will remind me about the high points of the conversation. If I quoted them a verbal price, I notate that beside the record. I also have notes I put out to the right side of the line, such as “follow up” or deadline information for certain things.
- The second subject of the notebook is my actual work log. I make a note of when I start and stop and what exactly I’m working on as well as how much of it I completed during that time span. This helps me to get a better feel for how much I’m actually getting paid in respect to the work I’m doing (I then transcribe this information into my Freshbooks timesheet and apply it to the project there to keep a permanent record). Without knowing exactly what resources I’m putting into my business, there is no way to be able to gauge what I’m getting out of it, so periodically reassessing my pricing structure based on this continuously compiled data helps to ensure I’m always turning a profit and getting paid what I’m worth for the work I perform. It’s very important to know how long certain tasks take to carry out, especially since time slips away from me most of the time. Toggl.com and Freshbooks.com both have great time-tracking tools integrated into their services, and both provide a free option. {Neither of those links are affiliates — I’m simply sharing intuitive functionality I’ve found that works for me.}
- The remaining three subjects of the notebook are for client project tasks lists. I allot two full front-and-back pages for EACH project. I write down their preferences at the top, any applicable login credentials and contact information, and notes that include details like the HEX codes for their color scheme, font families used in the graphics and/or text styles, and other pertinent information. Next, I make a list of EVERYTHING that needs to be done to complete the project. I check each item off the list as I finish them. Last, I have room for notes about processes I have run (such as import tools, installations, custom modifications, etc) and various other information that needs to be recorded along the way. This is all valuable information to refer to when my client wants an update on our progress.
Operating this way allows me to quickly see where I left off of a project and thus I am able to know immediately where to pick up when I come back to it. Keeping track of things this way means I won’t forget to do something. Because I’m typically working on several projects at once, I’m always double and triple checking to make sure I haven’t missed something; it’s easy to omit an element or skip a step when you’re working on similar projects if you aren’t closely keeping up with which task was performed for which project… I don’t worry about that anymore because if it is not checked off the list, it is still pending. If it is checked off, it’s no longer a worry of mine :) Plus, marking an item with a “check” gives me an unparalleled sense of accomplishment LOL!

What are YOUR productivity tricks? How do you keep yourself in check when you are your own boss? Share your tips in the comment section below!
August 31, 2010