Hit Subscribe Freelancer Q&A

Building an Audience for Your Business or Practice

How do you go about building an audience to help with your marketing efforts for your business or freelance practice?  I'll go through all sorts of things that you can do in general, but the most powerful thing you can do is find a niche and be specific about what you offer.
 
Picks
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This post, from Architect, summarizing CI/CD best practices.
This detailed guide to data compliance, aimed at IT leadership.

Interviewing, Negotiation, and Sales as a Freelancer

How do you go about closing the deal as a freelancer? Do you agree to interviews? Do you have some kind of sales that you do? And, in either case, how does negotiation work during the process?
In this video I walk you through how all of that good stuff works.
 
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This post, teaching you to use Google forms to implement a ticketing system.
This tool, TubeRipper is cool, and it's what I'm using to repurpose livestreams into podcast audio.

Freelancing vs Salaried Employment: Is Freelancing Right For You?

Have you historically been a salaried employee, but are curious about dipping your toes in the water of freelancing? In this video I take on a "compare and contrast" of freelancing and salaried employment, and how to figure out which makes the most sense for you.
 
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RequestMetrics has this cool tool that's an HTTP cache checker.
Tricentis and their stress testing offering.
 

Incorporating as a Freelancer: Your Options and How to Choose

It's near universal to wonder whether and how to incorporate when you start a freelance practice. In this installment of the freelancer Q&A Facebook Lives, I walk through the options that you have, and weigh in on what I'd recommend, base on my experience (starting 4 different business entities of 3 different varieties over the years).
 
This video walks you though how things work in the US, but some of this might apply in other countries. Caveat emptor, outside of the US, though.
 
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This post from Architect, about production environments.
This post, from Enov8, about deployment planning.
 

Should Freelancers Use Upwork?

Another episode from our Q&A series, where I take on Q&A about business and freelancing from authors in our author pool.
If you're going to moonlight or go into business for yourself freelancing, should you use Upwork or sites like it? I think there are certain specific situations make this a good fit for you, but generally and on a long timeline, I'd avoid sites like this.
 
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Jonathan Stark, The One and Only
A guide to dealing with CSS image effects
The fact that Tricentis does test automation for Salesforce
This post about building Slack workflows, which is great for minimizing the time I have to spend in Slack

Making Your Website as a Freelancer

If you're going to freelance, do you need to make a website, and what should that website look like?
I actually don't think it's a super high priority for a new freelancer, and you honestly don't need one to get started. But you will need one, eventually, so I talk about when and how to make one.
 
Show Notes
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Jonathan Stark Laser Focused Positioning Statement 
The DaedTech About page (I think that copy is about 4 years old)
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This post, from Architect, about the portability of software resonates with me.
Shameless plug for my recent post about tool-user keyword research.
Here's a post from friend of the show, Carlos, about release management in detail.
 

A Guide to Moonlighting as a Freelancer

Moonlighting is a specific flavor of working that involves working in addition to a normal, full time job. In this episode, I take on a question about how to get started with moonlighting as a freelancer, and what to consider.
Join us to learn more.
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Picks:
I just learned that risk-based testing was a thing, so here's a piece on risk-based testing.
I'll throw some love to our community site, aimed at answering questions that mid-career transitioners might have about programming.
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These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a digital marketing partner in the tech space. 

How to Market Yourself as a Freelancer

If you're a relatively new freelancer, how do you go about marketing yourself? The answer is simple, but not easy. Marketing is about being memorable, and being a generalist isn't memorable, so one of the most powerful things you can do is identify a niche. But, if you haven't done that or don't know how, I have some tips you can use while still in generalist-land.
Join us to learn more.
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As someone who (reluctantly) spends a good bit of time in Slack, I like what Wrangle has to offer, which is automation around Slack ticketing and workflows.
In producing this podcast, I've been getting a lot of mileage out of this free tool, that you can use to extract the audio from YouTube videos.
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These videos are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a digital marketing partner in the tech space.

Dealing with Lawyers as a Freelancer

If you're just getting started as a freelancer, you might wonder what you need a lawyer's help with. Do you need a contract? Help setting up an LLC? In this video I offer a take based on my experience setting up multiple businesses of what you do and don't need a lawyer for.
Join us to learn more.
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Picks
For the content work we do, web performance is an important subject, so check out this guide on synthetic testing and real user monitoring.
Speaking of content, shameless plug for my DaedTech series about, well, SEO, called "SEO for non-scumbags."
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These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a digital marketing partner in the tech space.

How Do Taxes Work When You Start a Business?

Are you thinking about hanging out your shingle and don't know how taxes work? Maybe you've never thought about how taxes work (you should, though). In this video, I walk you through how taxes work for freelancers in the US.
Join us to learn more.
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Picks this episode:
A while back, one of our authors, Carlos, wrote an article about Git statistics, which I, as a connoisseur of static analysis, can appreciate.
Speaking of which, if you're a .NET engineer and like you some static analysis, check out NDepend.
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These episodes are courtesy of Hit Subscribe, a digital marketing partner in the tech space.