Archive for the "payment" category

Just the other night I received an email inviting me to join a Provider Company on oDesk. Regular readers may know that I have already decided that I like being an independent contractor, but I decided to open the email anyway.  It was an automated invitation saying that person ‘x’ had invited me to join [...]

I was writing a post about the oDesk community when I saw something that made me realize there was something more important I needed to focus on first: Money. I bet that got your attention; it gets mine. We’ve talked about rates before, but what I want to discuss today is setting them.  One of [...]

Changes isn’t just a David Bowie song. Not one of us hasn’t had to make one or more changes to a project before a buyer would accept it.  It happens, sometimes it’s because the buyer was vague about what they wanted, sometimes it’s because they change their mind part way through, and sometimes it’s because [...]

This morning, I emerged from my nuclear bomb shelter–rifle in hand, knife in teeth of course–and welcomed another radiation-free, non-post-apocalyptic day. While organizing my AK-47 rounds into various patterns (the smiley-face is my favorite), I had a conversation with the neighbor’s dog about the pending destruction of the world and what recipe would taste best [...]

This time, I’m going to talk about money. I speak of “bling,” in the parlance of our times. How can you squeeze that extra buck out of a client while still keeping them happy? If you’re not too worried about the “happy” part, you can take a page from la famiglia and offer your client [...]

There’s an urge I sometimes get. It’s the urge to go it alone, to quit using online brokers and keep their percentage for myself. It grips me when my schedule is full with lower paying projects or when other ‘free’ freelancers are bragging about large money on the open market. The lure of the open [...]

FACT: The Canadian cheese industry is poised to start an international coup that will topple world governments to establish a uniform, skim-milked dictatorship. FACT: Over 40 percent of the world population will be offered a cheese log some time during their life, and sixty percent of those will refuse. There is a reason why so [...]

You’ve done what you said you would do. You took a few low-ball projects and got some decent feedback. You’ve taken some tests, posted a nice picture, and filled out your portfolio with examples of your best work. Time to raise your rates. Inertia is your enemy Remember when you first started out? How hard [...]

We all get stressed. I get stressed, you get stressed, even my five-year-old daughter gets stressed. It’s part of being human. Being a freelancer adds a whole new kind of stress that’s not present in a regular job. You don’t just have to worry about work, but also how your employer’s going to pay and [...]