Weekly Newsletter for The Freelancers: Here is the latest newsletter of the week starting on 15th October 2018.
Imagine that you live in a country town in the middle of New South Wales in Australia. Many country towns are dependent on the surrounding farmland being productive to create the income that makes the towns economically viable.
Some of the regions are experiencing the worst drought in living memory. You can watch a You Tube video about this situation below.
Across the world in New York two very smart women have reached out a helping hand to global communities with a Vision Statement, whether deliberately or coincidentally, and told these communities that
The New Economy and The Future of Work can help them. You can watch the video here.
This is all very well to know that there is The New Economy and that provided you have good internet connection there are 5,000 skills that are available to help you earn supplementary income, see here,
but how do you compete in a global marketplace? We are going to have a look at that issue. Here are first three articles:
Brenda Do Bust a myth: global freelancing websites make it harder for talent to compete on upwork.com which you can read here.
We will have articles on our website about how to compete in the global digital marketplace. It is an important issue because it is like a free trade agreement for primary production.
Motivate Yourself!
“We never know the love of a parent till we become parents
ourselves.”
– Henry Ward Beecher
It Is Not Easy Being A Caring Parent And Having To Make The
Decision To Return To Work When Your Children Are Young
It Is Not Easy Being A Caring Parent And Having To Make The Decision To Return To Work When Your Children Are Young
It is not easy being a caring parent and having to make the decision to return to work when your children are young
More and more of the millennial generation caring parents are being forced by rising living costs and the stagnation of wages to return to work. This decision can be tough to make.
The reason is that the period of your life when the children are growing and developing is a very short part of your life. It is for this reason that you should be motivated to look carefully at all alternatives before you make a decision.
In many developed countries with rapidly aging populations and declining birth-rates, public policies have been developed to encourage couples to have families. Some of these policies are childcare support, maternity and paternity leave, tax credits and benefits of various types.
On top of this has come the mega trend of being able to work as a freelancer with all its work-life balances and the acceptance of risk management issues that would normally be covered by employers.
In this newsletter we are looking at all these issues that help families come to the best decision for them by finding quality information that will help you.
These decisions are complex and the circumstances vary from country to country, but some articles have universal truths that can help families struggling with this decision.
Here are three articles that we feel are helpful:
1. Create your own new job by Barbara Drury which appears on www.SMH.com.au which you can read here.
2. Should you quit your job to be a stay-at-home mom? by Claire Gagne which appears on TodaysParent.com and you can read here.
3. Deciding whether to return to work appears on BabyCentre.co.uk which you can read here.
Productivity Tip of the Week
Freelancers Should Have A Newsletter To Increase The
Value Of Their Business
In previous articles, we discussed how the valuation of your business is increased by having a newsletter and an email list of clients and prospects.
This was because future purchasers of your business will want to keep your clients and remain in contact with prospects.
It follows that if you have good email techniques and etiquette it will improve your chances of building your client list and business and thereby the valuation of your business.
Of course, this also helps you gain and retain clients which go straight to increasing your gigs and cash flow. Here are some examples where there is an obvious need for a professional approach:
Is your business name in your email address? e.g. john@freelance-work-guide.com
Don’t have your email tied to an internet service provider, but to your domain name.
Have a professional signature e.g.
- John@freelance-work-guide.com
- https://www.freelance-work-guide.com
- https://www.facebook.com/FreelanceWorkGuide
- https://twitter.com/frelancewkguide and the graphic below.
Work-Life Balance Tip of the Week
Do You Know How To Start Out Moonlighting When Your
Family Budget Is Under Pressure?
Moonlighting as a freelancer to help balance the family budget is about to become very popular when global interest rates on home loans mortgages start to rise.
It is then families will start to look at their work-life balance and wonder what they can do to balance the budget without denying their children quality family time.
It is about looking at what side hustles, (that’s what Freelancer.com calls it), are viable propositions that can be investigated.
Dunjajanjic has written an article for the Freelancer.com Community blog entitled 8 side hustles that can make you money right now. You can read Dunjajanjic’s article here.
This quote is very appropriate for those that are about to embark on this journey:
“Balance is not something you find, it’s something you create.”
– Jana Kingsford, UNJUGGLED: Lessons from a Decade of Blending
Business, Babies, Balance and Big Dreams
If you are a sole parent in the situation of having to look at side hustles to keep the family budget balanced, it can be a tougher work life balance challenge, but it is doable.
Here is an article from the UK’s Telegraph Lifestyle segment to show you how. The article is written by Alice Judge-Talbot and it is entitled
How I revolutionised my work-life balance –and you can too. You can read Alice’s article here.
If you too have tips that can help the freelancing community you can send them to me at john@freelance-work-guide.com or share them on our Facebook Page.
Financial Tip of the Week
Do You Know What Outsourcers Think Of Freelancers
Versus Agencies?
One of the most important financial advantages you can have in preparing a pitch for a gig is to be able to understand what a possible employer is thinking.
One of the questions any outsourcing employer will be asking is whether it is better to employ an agency worker or a freelancer.
In your pitch letter to become a freelancer, you should be able to answer all the questions that your potential hirer will have. The answers to these questions should also appear on your website in your portfolio presentation.
It is a good idea to read about the pros and cons of employing agency workers or freelancers. Here is one article on the topic:
Mariame Bakkouri has written Content marketing outsourcing: the agency Versus the freelancer for the Jeffbullas.com which you can read here.
Drought News
Michael Brissenden has written for ABC.net.au Drought policy is always fraught, but farmers say it is broken which you can read here.
In my opinion the New Economy that is skills and job focused is one of the possible solutions and this article sets out the reasons Training choices matter for freelancers and career changers. You can read it by clicking on the link.
There are now 5,000 skills in 90 categories that the digital economy can offer according to Upwork’s 2nd Quarter Skills Index for 2018, see here.
There will be more over the coming months.
Amazon News
One of the realities that millennial families have to face is that managing work-life balance requires that you have to ask for help to get things done.
Amazon has been quick to spot this as an opportunity and has introduced Amazon Home Services. You can watch a video about what they do here.
The weekly AWS news video link to acloud.guru is here. They are the leading trainers globally for AWS freelancers.
Amazon Associates Website Case Study
The latest article on bestsellershourly.com Amazon Case Study website is entitled Smart choices matter for millennial families – 15 reasons why! which you can read here.
We have stopped showing the links for new articles as we have discovered that it could be having adverse impacts on the search engine optimization of the website Best Sellers Hourly. We will advise you when new articles are added. They are currently being worked on.
By this time you can check our social media:
Freelancers And Cyber Security
Pinterest: In view of the recent hack of Reddit we have decided to link to the Australian Bankers Association fact sheet entitled Small Business – Protecting Your Business Information Online which you can access here. We urge you look at other Fact Sheets that are available from the Association as well related to business and personal security.
We have gained approval from Robert Siciliano to bring you extracts from his books related to cyber security for freelancers. Robert Siciliano is an identity theft expert and consultant.
He also gives self defense and personal safety seminars. Robert provides safety and identity theft fraud prevention tips and advice on multimedia channels in the United States. We have his approval to bring you weekly extracts from his books:
Image Source: ROBERT SICILIANO
What Are The Two Most Common Ways Identifies Are Stolen?
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