Image by Terry Bain via Flickr

A few years ago, my sister’s house had a big problem with its foundation. A crack was forming right down the middle of their living room, which caused their tile floor to crack with it.

At first, their insurance company offered to replace their tile floor. But my sister insisted that the problem was more severe than it appeared. So she hired a specialist who confirmed that if the foundation wasn’t addressed, the problem would continue.

The specialist was right. They fixed the foundation and the problem was solved.

If you’re a freelancer or solo professional and your business has taken a beating in the last year or two, you may be in a similar situation. You certainly can work harder to make improvements in key areas of your business — things such as your marketing, work habits, pricing, and so forth.

But the impact of these changes will be short-lived if there’s a deeper problem you’re not addressing.

Intrigued by this idea, I recently set out to interview dozens of freelancers who had faced such a conundrum in the last few years. Their businesses had dried up. They could no longer command respectable fees for their work. And the marketing efforts that had once worked were no longer effective.

Yet they were still able to turn their businesses around.

When I studied what they did to get out of a bad situation, I realized that they creatively employed one of more of these 11 strategies:

Strategy #1: Follow the Flow

There’s nothing wrong with putting together a brilliant business plan. But in life and in business, we often have to improvise. We have to follow our instincts and see where they take us. I talked to a few freelancers that did just that and are now at the top of their field.

Strategy #2: Carve out a niche

Positioning yourself as an expert in a particular industry, skill, or type of project can help you stand out in a crowd of “me too” service providers. But you must be careful not to carve out too narrow a niche. Or to target markets that don’t really use freelancers.

Strategy #3: Diversify your clients and projects

Doing the opposite of niching can transform your business, too. Becoming a savvy generalist can keep your business humming along profitably, while others struggle. There can definitely be strength in diversity.

Strategy #4: Teach what you know

Teaching is a great why to expand your business and generate a good second income stream. Plus, it can also help you with strategy #6 below. I bet you have skills and talents others want to learn and would be willing to pay you for.

Strategy #5: Employ smarter marketing tactics

If marketing as usual isn’t working for you anymore, it’s time to do something daring and different. That means looking at what other successful freelancers are doing, getting out of your comfort zone and trying new approaches.

Strategy #6: Position yourself as the expert in your field.

In any market, the go-to experts tend to get the best clients and earn the highest fees. You don’t have to be the most well known, make an appearance on CNN or get quoted in The Wall Street Journal. You just have to be perceived as someone who knows the business better than many of your competitors.

Strategy #7: Turn a hobby into a business

If the freelance work you’re currently doing isn’t fun anymore, it might be time to make a big change. I talked to a few solo professionals who had created successful businesses out of their hobbies or interests. This is not for everyone, but it’s certainly a viable strategy if you have good business sense and can figure out a way to monetize one or more of your passions.

Strategy #8: Go to “hungrier” markets

Pick up your pail and shovel — and take your freelance talents to a new market, where your talents are valued more and the income potential is much higher. As I learned from some of the freelancers I interviewed, sometimes you have to go to markets that are willing to pay higher fees. Yes, they’re out there!

Strategy #9: Take a fresh approach to a traditional profession

Who says you have to provide and talk about your services in the same way everyone else in your profession or market does? Dare to do something unique and bold, and new clients may just stampede to your doorstep.

Strategy #10: Start a Side Business

Two businesses can be better than one. This is a very “do-able” strategy these days — and one that can significantly increase and stabilize your cash flow. In fact, for some of the freelancers I spoke with, their sideline ended up becoming their main (or at least a very important) income source.

Strategy #11: Reinvent yourself by taking a broader look at your skills

Quite often, your core skills can be applied in ways that can yield a better income, more stability and greater competitive advantage. The freelancers who used this strategy dug deep into their skills inventory, discovered what they REALLY did well, and figured out ways to apply those core skills to boost their income.

Intrigued? Need Ideas and Inspiration?

If you’re looking for smart and creative ideas (and good inspiration) to help turn your business around, I’ll be leading a teleclass this week that will expand on these 11 strategies. You’ll walk away with proven, tested, “people-have-really-done-this” strategies that can rapidly take your business from a slump to a sizzling success.

Just as important you’ll hear 20 examples from real freelancers who have deployed one or more of these ideas.

The teleclass is called “Extreme Makeover: 11 Proven Ways to Redeploy Your Freelance Talents.” And if you sign up by Thursday, you’ll get $10 off.

Either way, I’d like to hear from you…

How have you turned your business around? What creative strategies, methods or approaches have you implemented to get your income back on track?

Please share your thoughts and ideas below.

–

Ed Gandia is co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle (Penguin/Alpha). To grab 3 free chapters of his book and a complimentary copy of his Freelancer’s Income Expander Kit (containing 4 reports worth $126), visit www.TheWealthyFreelancer.com/bonus

If you’re a freelancer working online (and I hope you ARE leveraging the web to grow your business), it’s almost too easy to slap up a new offer without thoroughly considering how it brings value to the vendor-client relationship. If you’re in marketing or copywriting, you might even face situations where the client wants your help promoting an offer that feels a bit … thin.

Yet there’s a fine line between being thorough with new offerings and finding excuses reasons to keep sitting on a great idea. So I’ve created an easy-to-remember acronym that will help you decide whether or not your next offer is ready for the limelight.

It’s the “Flatla VALUE Test,” and it goes like this:

Verifiable – Just because you don’t have any paying customers doesn’t mean you can’t scrutinize your offer’s ability to deliver real, positive change for people. Can your ideal customer reasonably expect your product or service to produce the results you’re selling? Does your offer hold up in real world scenarios with real people who will behave irrationally? When in doubt, look at past offers and the results they produced (or didn’t produce) for customers; then extrapolate.

Actionable – If someone bought what you’re offering TODAY, could you deliver on your promise without having to cash in favors, spend a ton of extra money, or otherwise perform stupendous feats of heroism? This doesn’t mean you need to have the product or service completed before you sell it either. It’s often better to earn the money first and create the deliverable later. But if you DO get the sale, will you know exactly what you need to do with what resources in order to deliver? Or will you be confused and panic stricken?

Logical – Does your offer actually make sense? For example, when you go to write the sales copy, can you logically take your prospect from the pain to the desired outcome to the supporting benefits to product or service delivery to a final result? If your offer doesn’t align with the mechanics of how people make decisions to buy, your offer is either too pithy (missing details) or too thin (not enough value for the money), and people won’t believe in your claim.

yoU – (Okay, I cheated on the “u” here, but close enough!) Here’s where things can go sideways in a hurry for freelancers and other entrepreneurs working online. Every thing you offer—for sale or for free—must be an authentic reflection of YOUR worldview, your beliefs, and ultimately your humanity. When a value promise resonates deeply with the person making it, it’s more likely to also resonate with others. In other words, your story is probably someone else’s story. (Note: the number of people who will connect with your story in a BIG way is usually higher than you think.)

Engaging – People just want to feel better about something in their lives. I wish I could sound really smart here and make it more complicated than that, but it’s not. We may live much of our lives in this abstract, digital space online, but people still buy from people—not websites or sales pages or shopping carts. The decision to spend is an emotional one, almost every time in every situation for every kind of product or service. Winning offers shoot straight for the heart.

Certainly, there is more to know and understand around how to craft, market and sell your next great offer. The point of my VALUE Test is to make sure you’re being thorough enough to make the offer with conviction, but efficient enough to get the offer out of the dark (or off your hard drive) and into the limelight.

So, are you ready to make your next great offer?

Bio: Karri Flatla is a marketing strategist, copywriter and coach to online entrepreneurs seeking growth and action in their businesses. Known across the web for her take-no-prisoners style, Karri’s articles and advice have been featured at Search Engine Guide, Fuel Net, Problogger’s TwiTip, and Smart Company and Alberta Venture magazines. To learn more about crafting, marketing and selling your next great offer, visit Dare to Act! Marketing and register for Karri’s popular, pre-event training calls.

Here’s an income-boosting strategy my dentist taught me.

When I visit his office for my twice-yearly appointment, his dental assistant typically spends about a half-hour scraping and cleaning my teeth. Lots of fun! Then my dentist comes in and does the checkup, which takes about 10 minutes.

After one of these appointments, while signing the insurance form at the front desk, I noticed how the fees were broken down:

$45 for the half-hour cleaning. $105 for the 10-minute checkup.

My dentist obviously knew where he added the most value and made the most money. He focused on the checkups and hired other people to do the rest.

As a freelance professional, you need to think the same way.

Figure out where you add the most value on the project work you do and then hire a virtual assistant or even another freelancer to handle the other aspects of the job. If you do, your income per hour will go up.

Now, I admit, for years I was resistant to bringing in others to help with client projects. Like most freelancers, I did – and in some ways felt I should do – all the work myself.

Then one day, I got a job to write a massive travel website. The deadline was crazy. So I decided, somewhat reluctantly, to hire another freelancer — an experienced travel writer — to help. She wrote all the “travelogue” stuff — “On day 2, you’ll enjoy a delicious breakfast against the breathtaking backdrop of the Kilimanjaro mountains . . .” — and I wrote the sales-oriented messages — “Book today and get 15% off . . .”

I also supervised and edited her work to ensure the overall quality of the website copy was up to my standards.

I got that job done a lot faster, had more fun, and made more money for the time I put in. (Even after factoring in what I paid the travel writer.)

Did the client mind me working with someone else? Not at all. As long as I was directing the overall website copywriting, he was fine with it.

So ask yourself if there are aspects of the project work you do for clients that could be done faster, better, and perhaps more inexpensively by someone else.

If you’re a PR consultant, perhaps a good virtual assistant could make those follow-up calls to trade editors?

If you’re a white paper writer, wouldn’t it make sense to get a freelance editor to proofread your documents rather than you spending hours each month on that tedious chore?

The idea is to focus on your “sweet spots” – those activities clients are really hiring you to do and you do very well — and get others to take care of the rest.

It’s okay to get help with a client project. It really is!

————-

Steve Slaunwhite is the author or co-author of several books including The Wealthy Freelancer. His place on the web is www.SteveSlaunwhite.com.

Let me ask you a question: why are you here? I don’t mean why are here on this earth. I mean, why are you here on this blog, reading these articles?

I’m assuming it’s got something to do with the fact that you’re either curious about becoming a freelancer or solo professional or, you’re curious about how to make improvements in some area of your current business.

But, why, specifically are you interested in that?

Why don’t you just go out and get a job?

I’m serious. For most of us, that is precisely what we have been taught, conditioned and trained to do. That’s why the vast majority of us do just that. (Although… the scales are rapidly tipping as more and more people find themselves exploring the freelance life either by force or by intent.)

But back to you. I want to ask you one more time… WHY are you so diligent, persistent, curious or smitten about the idea of working for yourself?

The reason I keep asking is not because I’m nosy, or because it’s important for me to know. The reason is because it’s important for YOU to know.

So back to the question: Why are you here?

When we visit blogs, buy books, watch instructional videos, listen to podcasts… etc. often it’s because we’re consumed by the pursuit of the HOW of it all. We may have a goal or, at the very least, a curiosity about a new direction for ourselves, and this sparks all kinds of “HOW” type questions, like:

HOW do I start my business?

HOW do I get clients?

HOW do I make more money, balance my life, schedule my time…? etc.

Each HOW question leads us to another, and another, and before we know it, we’ve got a hard drive stuffed full of ebooks, MP3 files and other things that get lost in our eternal quest to learn more about the HOW.

Forget About the How – At Least for Now

I’m suggesting you take a moment, right now, to forget about the HOW. Just forget all about HOW you are going to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself and instead, spend some time asking yourself WHY you want to achieve them.

Try this exercise…

1. Ask yourself, WHY do I want to be a… [freelancer / consultant / solopreneur / whatever term you like]? Write your answer down.
2. Look at the answer you’ve just written down and ask yourself, WHY is that important to me? Write your answer down.
3. Repeat step 2 many times, maybe even 10 or 20 times, or until you feel like you’ve arrived at an answer that feels authentic, positive and powerful – and maybe even a little surprising.

Once you’ve arrived at that authentic answer… put it up in your office or carry it in your wallet, somewhere where you’ll see it every day.

Tomorrow, or maybe even later today, your mind may again become obsessed with finding answers to new versions of the question of “HOW do I…” do this or that. That’s fine. And finding answers to the HOW questions is, of course, very important if you are to achieve your goals.

But I’ve come to believe that the HOW questions are not as important as the WHY questions.

The WHY questions help you drill down to the source of what is really important to you, what really matters, what really motivates you. If you’ve taken the time to get clear on your own WHY questions, I’ll bet you’ll agree… your answers suddenly bring greater clarity, excitement and efficiency to your consumption and execution of the HOW.

If you did the exercise above, your answers may be very personal, so I’m not about to ask you to share them in the comments. (But, if you didn’t actually do the exercise above… permit me to ask… WHY not?

*

Pete Savage is co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and An Enviable Lifestyle. Now available at bookstores everywhere.

Courtesy ProgressOhio on Flickr

Next to BP, Wal-Mart is probably one of the most vilified corporations today.

The world’s largest retailer has been widely criticized for putting local merchants out of business, running suppliers to the ground and employing questionable labor practices.

Which is why I was shocked when I saw Gary Hirshberg, the founder and CEO of Stonyfield Farms—a producer of organic yogurt—in the documentary “Food, Inc.” talking about how he’s now selling his product to Wal-Mart.

What??!!

Why would a well-known environmental activist and leader in the organic movement agree to sell his product to what so many perceive to be the world’s most evil corporation?

I couldn’t believe it. But then he finally explained his reasoning. And I had to marvel at his genius.

Quite simply, Hirshberg sees Wal-Mart as a great vehicle to furthering organic farming. He explained that by selling to the world’s largest retailer, he’ll be able to move a TON more product. And for every cup of organic yogurt Wal-Mart sells, that’s one LESS cup of yogurt sold that was produced through traditional methods.

Essentially, Hirshberg is using Wal-Mart to help replace traditionally produced products with organic products made using sustainable agricultural practices.

Here’s a guy who’s committed to helping the environment and actually has the means to do this in a large scale. And in a very creative way.

Whether you agree with any of this or not (and whether you question his motives), there’s a lesson here for all freelancers, consultants and solopreneurs: There will be times when we have to use unpopular methods to reach an important business goal.

I’m not talking about being unethical or dishonest. I’m talking about using approaches we’d rather not use in order to develop a new skill or get some experience in an area we want to learn more about.

When you’re just launching your solo business, that may mean doing some work for almost nothing in order to create some samples or success stories. Or offering to do a project for a discounted rate in order to start building a track record in a new service area.

Or maybe even agreeing to take on a project for a good client when you’re booked solid…because you know it would probably go to a competitor otherwise (and you don’t want to take that chance).

It’s certainly true that many of us make these sacrifices for nothing. Had we stepped away from the situation and considered all the options we would have found a better way.

Maybe the client would have paid full price. Or waited four weeks for our schedule to clear up. But every once in a while there’s an opportunity we can’t pass up. The equivalent of the Wal-Mart thing.

And when it comes our way, we need to recognize it for what it is…and do what’s best for the long-term benefit of our business.

What do you think? What “unpopular” decisions have you made in the past that have paid off well in the long run?

—

Ed Gandia is co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer: 12 Secrets to a Great Income and an Enviable Lifestyle (Penguin/Alpha). To grab 3 free chapters of his book and a complimentary copy of his Freelancer’s Income Expander Kit (containing 4 reports worth $126), visit www.TheWealthyFreelancer.com/bonus

Well… that’s it people. I think it’s pretty much case closed now.

Economists, academics, thought leaders, bestselling authors… it seems just about everyone has weighed in on the topic of the new economy and the fact that self-employed professionals are taking center stage.

But this month, freelancing or “working independently” or being a “solopreneur” (no one has quite settled on the catch-all phrase to describe us yet) was officially ordained as the way of the future by the mainest of mainstream media…

It’s right there in black and white, on page 42 of the July issue of O Magazine…

“Stop looking for a staff position…” “…package yourself as an independent contractor for hire on a project by project basis.” – Suze Orman O Magazine, July 2010

O My!
Let’s just pause for a second and appreciate the gravity of this… here you have Suze Orman, perhaps the most recognized personal finance expert in America, in one of the nation’s leading magazines, telling millions of readers to eschew the traditional J-O-B and go solo.

Um. That’s HUGE.

You can read the full article online for the proper context, but basically Orman’s advice came in response to a reader (someone with a master’s in HR) who was frustrated with job hunting after 40 applications turned up crickets .

With her advice to look for project-based contract work, Orman adds her voice to the chorus of people like Seth Godin, Dan Pink and countless others who’ve been telling us for years (many years, in Pink’s case) that freelancing, or whatever you want to call it, is increasingly how we roll in North America now. (Seth Godin even refers to himself a freelancer, in this recent video interview.)

Seeing advice like this in the pages of O, from a mega-high profile author like Orman will be a wake-up call for a lot of people. If you thought “going solo” was just a trend, watch what happens now, and in the next few years to come.

Who stands to profit from this? YOU!
If you’re reading this blog, odds are you’re already an indpendent professional, consultant, freelancer, solopreneur, whatever-you-call-yourself or you’re working toward that vision. So… if you’ve been hesitantly dipping your toe in the warm waters of freelancing, now is the time to take the plunge. FULLY. Get ahead of the wave, go all out, and build your solo business. NOW is the time.

*
Pete Savage is co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer and doesn’t quite know how to answer, “Why were you reading Oprah Magazine, anyway?” so don’t ask.

Courtesy Remara on Flickr

You’re on deadline, and the project just isn’t coming together. You fuss, polish, tinker, and do just about everything you can to make it gel, but despite your best efforts, you just can’t seem to make any meaningful headway.

So you stop. You quit for a day and get a good night’s sleep.

Next morning, the thing comes together beautifully, seemingly without a hitch.

Why is that?

Some months ago, I interviewed a sleep scientist for an article in a science magazine. The doctor’s words came back to me as I read a section in Chapter 9 of The Wealthy Freelancer, entitled “Take Time To Incubate.” It’s the part of the book where Steve, Pete, and Ed point out that time away from a project—sleeping on it—often works wonders.

It does, and here’s why.

Our brains are compulsive digital recorders. They collect information about every single experience we have. You meet a client over coffee to hash out details for an upcoming report. While your conscious mind deals with the business at hand, your unconscious mind slavishly records everything around you: Your client’s body language. The light levels in the coffee shop where you meet. The music on the loudspeaker. The weather. Every freaking thing.

This is a wondrous ability, but you don’t need to remember everything. You just need to remember the important stuff.

“Remembering the important stuff” is called learning.

The sleep doc used this analogy. “If I teach you how to shoot baskets,” he said, “and I test you after you practice a few hours, chances are you’ll retain a certain level of skill. But if you go home and sleep, the next morning you’ll be better at it than when you finished your practice. It’s not just that time has gone by. Improvement happens when you sleep. If you don’t sleep, you don’t improve.”

Scientists think sleep has a pruning effect. As you sleep, your brain prunes unimportant memories—experiences, colors, sights, sounds, false starts, dead-end concepts—like the dead branches of a tree. Your brain decides what to discard and what to keep.

The goal of sleep is to organize your thoughts and consolidate learning.

You may bristle at the suggestion that you are still learning. But competent freelancers know that projects that push them into new territory help them grow.

The temptation as a freelancer is to ruthlessly push yourself to finish a task, even if it’s not going well, because your income is tied to how quickly you can finish up and invoice.

But you might work smarter if you consciously enlist your unconscious to do its job.

Want to consistently land high-paying projects and clients? Want to raise your income? Want to improve, work efficiently and prosper?

Go to bed.

——

Freelance writer Joseph D’Agnese is co-author, with Denise Kiernan, of The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed: The Only Personal Finance System for People with Not-So-Regular Jobs (Random House/Three Rivers). Follow them on Twitter @The_Money_Book

Courtesy chb1848 on Flickr

“We’d like to offer you a $5,000 a month retainer for one project a month, plus a few hours of consulting time. Will that work for you?”

The comment was music to my ears. I had been working on this client for the past 4 months. And now, finally, here was the offer… and it was a good one. I knew that one project would only cost me about 10 hours, or about $500 an hour. At the time, that was good money for me and I was ecstatic.

I say good money, but I should actually say “outrageous” money. It was way more per hour than I’d ever made in my life.

So, on the outside it was all joy and rejoicing.

But, on the inside, the mental demons of doubt, fear, and unworthiness began at once to go to work.

Over the past 5 years, as I’ve spoken with, coached, and presented to thousands of freelancers, I’ve come to realize that I’m not alone in harboring a few pesky mental demons.

These little terrors are masters at self-sabotage. Let me show you what I mean…

Within a month, I took that super-sweet contract of $5,000 a month and botched the first project. The company was even patient with me, giving me very detailed feedback so I could get it just right. But my internal system just couldn’t handle that kind of dollar to hour ratio. I had to get rid of it.

So, I did. And I did it in a way that I could blame them… at least at first. But the truth was, I was at fault not theirs. It was my mental demons sabotaging my own success.

The most common mental demons I find sabotaging freelancers are named fear, doubt, and lack of self-worth.  Have you seen them hanging about your place as well?

The biggest question is not do you have them (of course you do…) but how do you defeat them so you can land big clients, make great money, and do it all in 30 hours or less each week so you have time to enjoy all that income?

I have three very specific actions for you…

1. High Definition Marketing Plan – Fear is overcome by action. Action is produced with clarity. Clarity is the result of a little bit of mind work in creating a HD self-marketing plan. Here’s what I mean…

Sit down and define the exact amount of money you’d like to make this year. Now paint the picture of how you can do that. How many clients, who, how much per project, per hour, etc…

Now, ask yourself this key question: “What is the very next physical action item I need to accomplish to get one step closer to my goal?”  It could be “Call Bob at XYZ Company and discuss proposal”.

Now take that step and break it down even further. “Find Bob’s number. Schedule exact time to call. Put a tickler in calendar. Mentally review conversation. Simulate desired outcome. Tweak numbers to make the project irresistible.”  etc….

This kind of mental clarity wipes out fear. Why? Because it takes big projects and puts them in simple, easy, fearless terms.

2. Things as They Really Are. To overcome the doubt you should do two things:

First, take off the rose-colored glasses. You’ve been raised in a very hierarchical society. We practically worship doctors, gurus, CEO’s, and the like. We do the same with clients. They are above us and we are below. And, worst of all, we do it with other freelancers.

Sit down with 10 of your favorite magazines in your field, take off the rose-colored glasses, and really examine the articles, ads, reports, press releases, etc… You’ll find that 95% of the stuff out there is garbage. It’s just junk. Go to 100 websites in your industry and you’ll find even more pathetic work. My guess is, you’ll discover that you are way better most the people out there.

Second, base your confidence in the systems you have and the training you’ve received. If you are like the other freelancers I know, you’ve been to dozens of seminars, have a mountain of books and “how to” products, and have spent a small fortune on getting “good enough”. Well, you are good enough. The systems you’ve got work and are proven, so rely on them and confidently move forward.

3. “I’m so proud of you son!” I’m out of time to deal with the self-worth issue, but I can tell you it probably stems back to your family system and venturing into new waters.

The day I made more than my parents and siblings combined, I realized I was outside my family system and it tweaked me really hard. I didn’t feel worthy of all this month. So, at the suggestion of a good friend and mentor, I went to my mom and siblings, sat them down, looked them in the eyes, and said, “I made over $300,000 this year working less than 40 hours a week. Do you hate me? Will you still love me if I’m exponentially richer than you? Can we be friends still?”

They thought I was crazy.  My mother said, “I’m so proud of you son. I always knew you could do great things.”  It was just what I needed to feel comfortable doubling and tripling my income. In fact, it removed many of the barriers I had in my head.

There is some system inside your world that is holding you back. Go confront it head on and defuse it.

The bottom line is this:  95% of your income is NOT attached to techniques or skills or training. It is on the battlefield of the mind that you secure effortless riches or persist in a life of struggle and frustration.

Aufero obex – Destroy the Barriers.

________________

Joshua Boswell is a freelance marketing consultant, business development coach, and copywriter. His clients include thousands of freelancers and companies like Sony, Corel, Google, Microsoft, St. Jude Christian’s Research Hospital, Agora, and dozens of others. You can find him at www.JoshuaBoswell.com

One of the most frustrating aspects of being a freelancer is how clueless everyone else seems to be about the world in which we live and work.

They don’t understand the pressures we face. They can’t imagine not having a boss to report to. Or the fact that working from home doesn’t mean we’re sitting on the couch eating Ho Hos and watching Oprah.

And NO ONE (including most personal finance authors and publications) seems to be able to fully grasp how hard it is to manage your finances when your income is variable.

When clients flake out and their payment is late. When you have to fund your retirement. When you have to set money aside to pay for your taxes every quarter. When you have to find and buy your own health insurance.

The topic of money played a big role in our book The Wealthy Freelancer. But our money discussions centered on how to boost your income for every hour you worked in your business. That way you could earn the same or more in less time, freeing up precious hours to do all the other things you want to do in life.

Where we left off was how to manage your cash flow. We knew that this was a much bigger topic — one that required a comprehensive discussion. So we spent half a chapter covering some of the basics while urging you to consult other sources for more specialized information.

Well…that’s where The Money Book for Freelancers, Part-Timers, and the Self-Employed comes in. This new book — written by Joseph D’Agnese and Denise Kiernan, two very successful freelancers — is an absolute must-read for any independent worker out there.

In the first few chapters, you’ll be exposed to some very practical tools for forecasting your earnings and managing your cash. You’ll be able to create a “spending identity statement” (very helpful!). And you’ll have the clarity you need to:

• Identify your financial goals
• Categorize those goals to look for trends
• Prioritize your goals as a step toward building an action plan

D’Agnese and Kiernan then introduce you to a brilliant cash flow system that could only have been engineered by someone who’s in the freelancer trenches every day. It’s simple and easy to implement, regardless of your current financial knowledge or your comfort level with math.

It also doesn’t matter how little or how much you’re earning as a solo professional. The authors’ system will easily scale up or down. It’s also very flexible. So it doesn’t matter if you spend a big part of the year traveling the world on different assignments, if you’re more of a traditional work-from-home freelancer, or if you’re moonlighting while you keep your day job.

Best of all, it works! I’ve already implemented a few of their ideas and am getting great results, which is very motivating!

Here’s a great bonus: you’ll actually have fun reading this handy guide. In fact, I think this is the first personal finance book that has made me laugh! The authors’ voices and personalities really come through, and they keep you engaged and entertained all the way to the end.

The Money Book is an excellent companion to The Wealthy Freelancer. This combo is a powerful one-two punch that will kick your business and finances into high gear at a time when many of us need to get our financial house in order.

In my last article I talked about how freelancers, in an effort to save money, often fall prey to those all-in-one el-cheapo DIY Website solution packages. These sites often end up costing more in the long run.

“But,” you may be asking, “just what am I supposed to do? I’m one person, I just started my business, and I don’t have a lot of money.”

Developing a terrific Website that gets business in the door doesn’t have to cost a lot – you just need to know your options.

1. Develop a creative brief and site map.

The first step in creating a Website that doesn’t run over budget is to be explicitly clear about what you want your Website to do for you. Some questions to ask include:

• What kinds of sites do you like and why?
• What is your branding? Will you need a logo?
• Will you be publishing a blog? If so, it should be part of your site (i.e. yourdomainname.com/blog)
• What content do you have already that you can add to the site (i.e. reports, e-books, articles, etc.)
• If you have a site and you’re upgrading, what’s working and what’s not?
• Will you be incorporating social media? How about an e-newsletter?

You’ll also want to include a site map that lists the proposed sections and pages.

Your creative brief is your roadmap and will help your Web designer better quote your project. It will also help prevent project creep – saving you big money down the road.

2. WordPress, WordPress, WordPress

A content management system (CMS) that many people think is used only for blogs, WordPress (WP) makes updating a Website quick and easy, eliminates all the back and forth between you and a Web designer, and significantly lowers your Web costs.

Because it’s open source, you can make WP do all sorts of neat, customized functions. When I publish case studies to my DH Communications Website, for example, my WP designer made it so that my case study “overview” page is automatically updated as well. Ditto for my e-newsletter archive page. It’s pretty amazing, actually – and has saved me countless hours and design fees.

WP is free, and lots of free WP themes exist, which makes WP a great resource for budget-minded consultants and freelancers. However, you’ll want to customize an existing WP theme or have a designer develop a custom template for you – which brings me to my next point.

3. Don’t do it yourself.

I highly recommend you hire a competent WP designer. WordPress is easy to use once you have the template up and running. Customizing WP, however, is not.

You want someone who combines extensive WP programming and design expertise.

You can find WP designers via eLance or other sites like it.

Having been down the painful road of trying to find a competent WP professional, I recommend that you ask plenty of questions of prospective designers, view portfolios and get a signed contract with milestones, deadlines and costs spelled out.

This is where your creative brief comes in: prospective WP designers should be able to look at it and give you a rough quote and/or tell you if they can build a site based on what you want.

In the last article of this series, I’ll explain how to develop a plan for creating a content rich, optimized site that showcases your expertise and gets you found in the search engines.

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Dianna Huff, a veteran Web Marketing Expert, helps consultants and freelancers maximize their online marketing efforts with marketing assets they already own – and without spending a lot of money. To learn more about her Web marketing coaching services, and to download her free Twitter report, visit www.the-profitable-consultant.com. You can also follow her on Twitter @WebMktgCoach