Starting a Successful Freelance Operation

[samjjones]

Tron - I am glad to see that your power point is saving lives!

[samjjones]

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Three key selling methods would be cold calling offices, sending emails, or showing up in person. I personally think it's most professional to call, get contact info and follow-up with an email that includes your basic information and the sample presentation.

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[hanster]

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Three key selling methods would be cold calling offices, sending emails, or showing up in person. I personally think it's most professional to call, get contact info and follow-up with an email that includes your basic information and the sample presentation.

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Thats one of the best movie scenes ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErN6vE0nYdE

[Duke]

about google ads:

they can be quite pricey. We pay around $5k a month in fees for adsense. You need to make a decent amount of money to make up for that.

One month was $9k, and we're positive that there was click fraud involved (this had to do with the average at that time being around $2k, not $5k like now). They "researched" it and said that it was all legit. Yeah right.

[RunDownHouse]

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Also; does anyone have any advice/thoughts/experience with freelance writing?

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I'd love to hear more about this sort of thing. I've never taken a journalism class or written anything for publication, but I want to get into travel writing. Some early advice I've gotten is to start out writing reviews of local restaurants and bars and try to get them published in the sort of free weekly entertainment guides every city has. That way, I can start building a portfolio of published works, and if I focus on reviewing little-known or out-of-the-way places, maybe eventually I can parlay that into finding little-known places in other cities, and thus parlay that into travel writing. I've also gotten the suggestion of getting a job with companies that coordinate business travel. There are companies that set up travel for large business groups, and they need people on the ground to do things like hold up signs at the airport, handle lost luggage, make sure everyone's got a hotel room, etc. Very basic, bitch sort of work, but it could sort of pay for writing that I'd do in the different cities I travel to.

But really, I have no idea how one becomes a freelance writer, and its a daunting thought when I've never written anything for any type of publication before. If anyone's a freelance writer or has knowledge of that area, I'd love to hear it.

[luckyjimm]

I think you're much better off charging for PowerPoint work by the hour rather than by job, by the way. It's so easy to get stung otherwise.

[Tron]

Just wanted to thank everyone for all the excellent advice offered in this thread. I'll be sure to keep those that expressed an interest updated on how the business progresses.

Also, the website is more or less live so if anyone wants to check it out, again, just shoot me a PM.

I've gotten a lot of love in this thread, though, so let's see if we can't help out the other potential freelancers (lippy and RDH) and hook them up with some freelance writing advice.

Freelance Switch is a pretty good site... It seems like it is more geared toward helping people who are already doing freelance work, but there is definitely some good advice in there for starters too. So check it out. Holla.

[The4Aces]

Do some free powerpoints for the law office you are currently working for. Try to do them for as many lawyers there as possible.

[avfletch]

I'll be back to finish off this thread later but thoughts off the top of my head for OP. You are doing an internship in a place that employs your target market, why not go talk to them and tell them what you can do?

[NozeCandy]

I got my start when I realized the neighborhood surrounding my college campus was being overtaken by narcotics instead of more honorable businesses like backroom gambling and guns. I did not like this, so I purchased a firearm, got my car painted jet black, and drove around and popped all the dealers in the same night, so they wouldn't have time to communicate.

With the money I collected off of all the dealers' bodies, I got my car armor-plated and bulletproofed in addition to buying a nice suit and fedora hat and copious amounts of hair grease. I then went around to all the small businesses and told them that I would cruise around once a night and make sure their place is safe, and that no (other) illegal activity was going on that would scare off customers. All this was, of course, in return for some of their profits. Some owners didn't like it, so I had to crack some skulls and even filled a laundromat with soap bubbles to get my point across. I missed one night's round because I was studying for a Spanish quiz, but my subjects understood that if I failed any classes my parents would cut me off, so they were OK with it. The campus cops got wind of some of this, but I sated them by slipping them a few hundos and letting them know of an underage drinking and GHB ring that gathered in all the houses with the foreign letters on the front.

One business really started getting big, I enlisted my roommate and the club hockey team as my crew. This made my life much safer since I no longer had to do the rounds at night. The hockey guys wondered at first why I should still be getting paid while they did all the work, but I had a gun and they only had hockey sticks, so they got the point.

Several months later, I expanded my business. I started running brothels out of the girl houses with the foreign letters. I found this to be an incredibly smart move, as they did not even object since they were now getting paid to do exactly what they would be doing anyway.

So that is where I'm currently at. I protect businesses in Uptown New Orleans from bad clientèle and I run hookers off campus. Any suggestions for further expansion would be appreciated. Also, if you would like in on this, PM me. Much of my crew is graduating and I am in need of replacements.