6 Good Tips for Your Freelance Design Contracts
In freelance work, having legal contracts between you and the clients you work with is important. Contracts legally protect you and your business in various ways and helps in making sure that you’re properly compensated for the work that you do.
What follows are a few tips you should keep in mind when you’re drafting your contracts for your design services.
Though we’ve focused on the needs of designers, these tips are also applicable to a wide range of professions (especially creative services professions).
Tips for Building Trust with Your Clients
Trust is an important component of any relationship. When it comes to freelance work, trust can encourage a client to want to work with you again.
My software firm has billed over 30,000 hours in the last 12 years. In that time span, I’ve had to learn how to earn and maintain the trust of our clients in order to keep them coming back.
I’m certainly not a business expert. I’ve made some horrific mistakes and have had my fair share of struggles. I write this article in the hopes of sharing some of my experiences with you.
Why You Should Lead with Mobile Web Apps (Not Native Apps)
Based on my experience, when you’re developing apps for multiple mobile device platforms, there is a huge advantage to having your HTML5 mobile web developer lead the production effort as opposed to your native app developer (e.g., iOS, Android, etc.)
In this article, I’ll share my thoughts and opinions on why building mobile web apps first is a good strategy.
Should We Always Deploy Content Management Systems?
Content management systems are a wonderful tool for empowering website owners. Most of us have witnessed the power and ease of use of CMSs like Drupal and WordPress. They have changed the web development industry in a significant way.
Now, even average Internet users who have very little technical knowledge can have the ability to run and manage websites without any help from trained web developers.
Because of this CMS revolution, a major segment of the web development industry — dedicated to developing simple to complex CMSs for a broad set of users and premium themes for popular publishing platforms — has blossomed.
6 Tips for Effectively Dealing with Client Demands
We’ve all had that client. The one who comes to you with a huge, complicated assignment and proceeds to be a gigantic pain in the rear about it. They do things like neglecting to answer their phone or email, change their minds a dizzying number of times about details in the design, all the while demanding that you do the impossible in a matter of minutes. Oh, and did they mention they expect you to do these things free of charge?
How to Fire Bad Clients
We are used to reading advice on how to attract and keep clients, but sometimes things don’t go exactly as planned in a business relationship. The more common scenario of a relationship gone bad is when the hired person (the web professional, in our case) is fired because they didn’t render the services as expected.
It’s more unusual to hear stories of the hired professional walking out on the client. We don’t hear about it because the client is supposed to be king, and we are supposed to keep them satisfied.
But what do you do when the king becomes a tyrant? You may decide that it would be best to fire them.
10 Ways to Be a More Productive Web Developer
We could all be more productive. There are many things we can do — some big, some small — that will enhance the way we work and improve the outcomes of our activities.
Although I can’t promise that I’ll be able to help you cure all your productivity ailments, I do hope that I can provide you with a few useful, solid tips on streamlining your web development workflow and making every part of the development cycle move quickly and smoothly.
