Missing Deadlines

Freelance Switch writes about the 10 biggest mistakes freelancers make. Notable is the first one about missing deadlines.

The problem with some freelancers is that they don't even set deadlines. Giving an estimate is fine when you're just talking, but once the deal is closed you should have a timetable that the client can hold you to. Once the deadlines are set, you should make sure you meet them, or, if in case you don't, the fault shouldn't be yours.

The best tip regarding this is to always underpromise and overdeliver. In "The Kobayashi Maru" Scotty says that he always give Kirk a longer estimate so that the Captain thinks he's a miracle worker when he does what he says he'll do in half the time.

The next best thing is to clearly delineate responsibilities in the timetable. Usually a project needs to be approved in stages. Give your client a deadline, too, for approvals. Make sure that you hold him to that one-day turnaround when it comes to commenting on your studies so that he doesn't throw the entire schedule off track. Let the client know that if he gets back to you a day late, that'll move the schedule back a day, too.

The naming of cats...

Naming anything can be difficult, be it your company, a new product, or a new baby. With the latter my only criterion is that the kid can spell it in kindergarten and live with it without getting beat up in school.

The Name Inspector is a blog run by a linguist and professional namer, meaning he knows his stuff and gets paid for it. Although the featured names are analyzed after the fact, it still is good reading, providing insight into what factors should be taken into account when thinking of names. He also has the occasional "big picture" post that gives helpful tips like "10 tips for naming your company..."

Rip off

Cosmetics company Elizabeth Arden seems to have ripped off a nonprofit organization's logo for its new Britney Spears fragrance "Believe." The similarities are obvious; just check out this comparison from younggogetter.com.


The original uses Arial or Helvetica (if I'm not mistaken, I'll check later) while EA uses Century Gothic. The fonts are similar enough to untrained eyes, but what's more striking is that the color scheme is the same.

Which begs the question: how can a large company, with teams of designers on its payroll and a legal team to check trademarks and copyrights miss this?

Of course we should not rule out parallel creation. The EA designers might have come up with the logo independently. The font is classic modernist while setting the "i" off with a different color is all too common. The colors may have come from the Pantone color trend predictions. In other words any one could have made it up; it's not that brilliant.

The lesson here is simple: do a basic image search after your initial logo idea sketches. It doesn't matter how great your design looks or if you created it on your own, if someone else is using it (or using something similar enough that lawsuits might arise) then it's useless to you. Yours or your clients' lawyers should also practice due diligence and check registered trademarks.

More on intellectual property in a future post.

Dirty Words

I make it a point to check the spam boxes in my email accounts before mass deleting them. There have been several occasions when a client or supplier's mail has been filtered. Some design forum regulars have also recounted tales of clients lost because of unreceived mail.

Here are some of the words that are sure to get your mail filtered. Avoid them if possible. Better yet, remind your regular email pals to place you on their "safe lists" (or whatever the equivalent is in his mail program).

Setting your rates

Those starting out in the creative services need to know what price to charge. Too low and you won't be able to sustain your business, too high and you risk scaring away clients. You have to find the right balance. There are two ways to do this: you can either check the industry rates and base yours from that, or price from the bottom up, which means factoring your costs and determining the best rate.

Check industry rates

Search the net, ask your friends, request for quotes from practitioners. Check to see what others are charging and what clients are willing to pay. Just be sure to check the exact market you're playing in. A small boutique design studio charges differently from an full-service ad agency from a print shop layout service. A freelancer who offers basic web design cannot set the same rates as a larger firm that offers everything from design to hosting to web marketing.

Check the rates of your direct competitors and position yourself accordingly. Will you price lower than them or adopt a premium strategy? Just be sure that the work you do is commensurate to what you charge, especially if you're pricing higher. A starting photographer should probably charge a little bit lower than the big names while a new design studio needs to gain a bit more experience / prestige to command higher rates.

Set your own rates

Of course the rates that others charge still need to be checked against your costs. Given the number of projects you can handle in a month, you need to be sure that what you'll be earning is enough to sustain you. You might also be in a position where competitors' rates are difficult to obtain, forcing you to set your own rates. To do this, first determine your hourly rate.

The hourly rate is simply the cost of your working time. To compute for this, first set your ideal monthly salary (keep it realistic), and divide this by the number of hours you work per month. The average person works 40-hour weeks so you can divide your monthly rate by 160 (40x4 weeks).

Once your hourly rate is set, estimate the number of hours it takes to finish a project. Multiply this by your hourly rate, add your costs (printing, transportation, etc.), add around 50% for allowance, and quote away.

Fine-tuning

Historical data will help you fine-tune your rates. The prices you quote may need to change depending on your speed, efficiency, and the type of clients you have.

Monitor the amount of time it takes you to finish an actual project and compare this to your estimates. If it takes longer, you may need to raise your price or check your work process. If it takes less time than the estimate, cool. You can either charge lower or enjoy the higher margin.

Check if you're posting profits or losses. If it's the latter, determine the cause. Are you getting enough clients? Or is most of your time spent twiddling your thumbs? Are you able to get your name out there? If you find yourselves working to full capacity yet still losing money, then it might just be inefficiency on your part.

Business for Creatives

There are hundreds of pages online (and thousands off) dedicated to basic business knowledge for those in creative services. From how-tos on running a photography or graphic design studio to tips on sales pitching and pricing, you can find most any information you need in running your business.

If you live and work in the United States, that is.

Maybe Canada and Europe, too. But there's nothing out there (at least nothing I've heard of) outside a few threads in PhilMUG or PinoyExchange and the occasional article in Entrepreneur magazine, that specifically addresses the Philippine scene. No resource (online or off) that seeks to give tips and advice to creative types who are running (or wish to establish) their own businesses.

So here's Business for Creatives. A blog that will feature links to resources, reviews of sites and/or books in the market, and my personal insights. In the future there will be interviews of creatives who run their own businesses and other resource persons.

Feel free to comment. I'm open to suggestions regarding the blog.