So, like me, was tax season
your nerve-wracking wake-up call, like,
"Oh, I guess there's more to this whole freelancer thing
than drinking a lot of coffee
and being a digital nomad?"
Well, you wouldn't be the first one
to have had that epiphany.
Keep watching for five tips for streamlining
your freelancing biz to make it more profitable,
rewarding, and more importantly, stress-free.
(upbeat music)
Working for yourself is great, right?
You get to set your own hours,
work whenever and wherever you want,
be ultra selective with your clientele,
and in most cases, you do get to do something
you genuinely love.
But, here's the thing.
If you work for yourself,
not only do you need to be great
at whatever it is you're doing,
whether that's copywriting, social media management,
web design, marketing, and everything in between,
you also need to be actually understand
how the heck a business works in the first place.
I know, shocker, right? (laughing)
Taxes, managing your clients, contracts,
invoices, expense tracking, incorporating,
separate bank accounts.
I mean, the list goes on and on.
And when you're just getting started,
all of this can feel a little overwhelming
to say the least.
And I get it, 'cause I was in your shoes once too
and I remember feeling like this was all way over my head.
But, deep breath.
There is some good news.
You don't have to have it all figured out
before you get started.
Remember that.
In this video, I'm gonna share with you
my personal tips and the best practices
that I've picked up over the last 10 years
of running my business.
So that way, you can worry less about the operational stuff
and focus more on expressing your true creative genius.
And hey, while I am fully aware that this topic
might not be the most interesting subject on the planet,
it is no doubt incredibly important
and necessary to talk about.
So, at the end of this video,
after all the boring stuff, I'm gonna spice it up a bit
and share something that is way more interesting,
my super-secret Monday morning notebook hack
to help you have the most productive week ever.
So, keep watching to stay tuned for that.
Hey Posse, what's up?
It's Alex and this week, I'm coming at you
with a highly requested video from the Posse community.
Tons of fresh freelancers approach me
with skyrocketed stress levels and all sorts of questions
about the not-so-fun aspects of running a business,
and while I might not be able to give you expert advice,
I can share my own experiences with you.
So, give me a thumbs up below if this is the video
that you've been waiting for.
And if you're new to the crew, welcome.
On my channel, you'll find over 100 tutorials
covering the hottest marketing, copywriting,
and freelancing tips in the industry today,
so go ahead and hit that subscribe button below
and don't forget to ring that bell to be notified
when my next tutorial goes live.
Now, before I dive into the tips I have for you today,
I have a big disclaimer to make.
Everything I'm about to share comes from personal experience
and lessons that I've learned over the last 10 years
of running my business.
I am not in any means an accountant or a lawyer
or an expert telling you what you should do
or shouldn't do in your business.
This video is only meant to help inspire you
with ideas and things that you can then research
and look into on your own to make your business
a little less daunting and overwhelming.
But please, always, always, always, always
refer to an accountant or a lawyer
for specific advice in your niche, market, and location.
All right, remember that every area in the world
has different laws and regulations,
so in order to truly and fully understand
your own business options and obligations,
you really should be talking to an expert.
So, use this video as a way to just start thinking about it
and write down questions that you really wanna get answered.
And trust me, at the end of the day,
the investment in these experts is worth the money
to get the peace and mind and confidence
that they can provide.
All right, now, with that outta the way,
let's dive into the first super sexy topic on the list,
freelancing and taxes.
Ugh, yeah, started with the big one.
This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions
I get, so I'm gonna give you a few tips
that I personally follow here.
Now, I remember the very first year I started
my freelancing business.
I remember it very well because at the end of the year,
I was hit with a big old tax bill to pay.
My mistake was that I didn't put any money aside for taxes
or I didn't make any quarterly tax payments
to the government.
So, what I should've been doing was saving
and instead I was spending,
and then at the end of the year,
I had like a whole year's worth of taxes to pay.
And then I had to take out a loan to pay it.
The lesson I learned the hard way
when it comes to making tax season a little less stressful,
my number one tip will always be
to make sure that you're making tax payments
or at the very least, you're putting aside
a little bit of money each month
into a separate account
that will then go towards your taxes.
So that way, at the end of the year, you won't be like,
shell-shocked when the tax bill comes and you're like,
"I didn't know I was supposed to pay taxes."
Now, for my second tip on handling
your business taxes and reducing
that end-of-year headache is use an invoicing tool.
I know you guys like to DIY it sometimes,
but honestly, using a tool like FreshBooks
is a total game changer when it comes to tax season.
It'll keep track of all of your income for you
so that you can forget about triple checking
your DIY spreadsheet and all of your loose invoices.
All you have to do at the end of the year
is go into your tool and then you can download
a revenue report that is literally just like all the money
you made that year and then hand it over
to your accountant.
Easy peasy, right?
But that is not all you need to hand over to your accountant
at the end of the year.
You also, of course, need to keep track of
and file your business expenses.
Now, when it comes to keeping track
of your business expenses,
I have a couple of tips there as well.
Firstly, I like to make sure that I use
the exact same email address for everything business-related
that I purchase.
So, if I'm sending invoices, signing up for subscriptions,
classes, purchasing materials, or anything else
that's directly related to my business,
I use that email address.
Then, any monthly invoices or billing receipts
that I get in that email are immediately tagged
in my email account under receipts
and they just sit there in their nice little folder.
And so, when it comes to tax time,
I just pull open that folder, download those receipts,
and then hand them right over to my bookkeeper.
And that's all you really gotta do, guys.
Freelance taxes are really not that complicated.
I know it can feel a little overwhelming
when you're just getting started,
but remember that all you really need to do
is keep track of your income and expenses
and that's it.
And remember to learn your local regulations
and best practices, so always reach out to your accountant.
All right, now, onto the next one, contracts.
Now, let me just come right out and say it,
you don't need to have like 30-page long
super huge, beefy contracts with your clients.
But obviously, it's best to have some sort
of written agreement in place.
Yeah, even with that friend of a friend
that you're writing a few Facebook Ads for,
you should probably sign something
before you do any work.
So, contracts are important because they clearly lay out
the expectations, deliverables, payment details,
and responsibilities of your job,
and that way, god forbid,
should you ever run into any issues with a client
not paying you or expecting work
that was outside the original scope
or breaking any other terms of the agreement,
you'll have something that you can fall back on
that will legally protect you.
So when working with new clients,
I like to send statements of work,
which are simple contracts that lay out the key terms
of the agreement.
They aren't perfect, but they do have the bare minimum
information and would offer me some level of protection
should anything ever happen.
And at the end of this video, you can grab a copy
of my statement of work template
that you can send off to your clients
and get started right away.
Now remember, this is just a starting place.
I'd say it's much better to go the extra mile
and make sure that you're protected with a contract,
but again, this is something that you really
should reach out to an expert for.
You can pay a lawyer to draft detailed contracts for you
or you can also pay for generic contracts online
that would cover your bases.
All right, now, the next topic on the list
is making your business official.
Now, a common misconception is that you have
to register your business as an LLC
or some sort of entity or corporation
in order to do business.
But that's actually not the case at all.
The truth is that as soon as you start freelancing,
you already are a business owner
and you're operating under your own name.
Either as a sole proprietor or an independent contractor
and you can continue operating your business,
AKA sending invoices and making purchases,
under your own name.
I, myself, didn't incorporate until 2016,
so actually, like 4 1/2, five years after starting
my freelancing business.
Why?
Well, for one thing, it costs money to incorporate.
There's more paperwork, there's more tax forms,
you have to file two tax returns,
and it can be a lot of extra work
if you're not making enough money to even leave money
inside your company.
With that said, as your business grows
and you start generating more income,
you probably should consider making your business official
in terms of actually incorporating it.
And your accountant or business lawyer
can help you determine when the best time
for you to do that is.
So again, please, please, please reach out
to your local expert to decide what's right for you
and your business.
Okay, now, I'm gonna keep this next one pretty short,
but I really wanted to make sure I touched on it briefly.
And that is this,
tips for managing your clients and organization.
When it comes to client management and organization,
this is really something
that can make or break your business.
Taking the time to get organized and stay organized
is probably the one tip in this whole video
that will lower your stress level the most.
What I like to do is have a folder for every client,
have a folder for invoices, receipts, and contracts,
have a folder for testimonials,
a folder for referrals, a folder for ideas,
you get the idea.
I'm a folder freak.
Find out your own system of organization
and then really stick to it religiously.
Not only does this make running your business
super streamlined, but it also makes your life
way more easier when it comes to paying taxes
or pitching to new clients,
'cause you just have a system and you stick to it.
Now, some of my favorite tools for managing clients
are Zoom for calls and meetings,
Email, obviously, for communication,
Canva for creating statements of work
and other deliverables, FreshBooks for invoicing,
and DocuSign for getting contracts signed.
Simple and effective.
All right, now, are you ready for the little bit
of spice I promised you?
I know you are.
Here is my super-secret notebook hack.
So it's no secret that I love notebooks.
I literally have multiple of them on my desk right now
and if you follow me on Instagram,
then you've probably seen my posts about my MITs,
or Most Important Tasks, that I write out
at the beginning of every month.
But I actually like to sit down every single Monday morning
to map out my MITs for the week.
I personally do this using a Moleskine planner.
Let me just grab it right here.
It looks like this,
but you can use whatever kinda notebook you want.
I use the planner because on one side,
it's lined, and on the other side,
it's got a day-by-day planner.
Over here on the right side,
I start out by listing all of my tasks for the week
categorized by client or project.
Then, over here where it's the day-by-day breakdown,
I list down all of the critical tasks
that I need to complete each day
in order from top priority to lower priority.
See, let me zoom in so that you can see
what that looks like.
So lined on that side, daily planner on that side.
Hopefully you saw that.
So I actually use both sides of the notebook religiously.
But the secret part is this.
The critical tasks,
the ones that I need to get done,
might not be the entire task itself
but rather smaller tasks that build up
to the bigger task.
If you can break down your tasks into smaller tasks,
it'll help you get momentum and motivation
towards achieving your goals without getting overwhelmed
and doing that thing that all of us freelancers love to do,
which is procrastinate.
All right, guys, I hope you loved
my super-secret notebook hack and I really hope
this video helped ease some stress and fears
you might have about running your own business.
I wanna stress one more time that you don't need
to be doing all of these things right now,
especially not to get started.
Please don't let fear of paperwork or taxes
stop you from igniting your business
or fulfilling your passion.
I promise that once you get going,
it'll get a lot more simple and easier,
trust me on that one.
And always, always, always make sure you're getting advice
from your local lawyers and accountants, of course.
Now, as promised, you can grab your free statement of work
template here in just a second.
And until next time, I'm Alex, ciao for now.
All right, guys, if you enjoyed that video,
make sure to check out the next one from me right here.
And you can click right here
to get a free gift.
So, you've watched a couple of YouTube videos
and decided that you wanna give
this whole copywriting thing a try.
Yeah, you do.
Well, let me tell you, you are in the right place.
In this video, I'm sharing the first six steps
you must take to start a freelance copywriting business
and make money doing what you love ASAP.