6.01.2011
Free Systems That New Freelancers Should Not Miss!
With the current state of the economy worldwide, many of the unemployed have opted to start freelancing to create opportunities when few seem to exist. The internet has made this easier to do than in years past.
1) Freshbooks
If you are going to do work for others, you have to get paid! You will need to create invoices for your records and to keep track of who owes you and how much. Freshbooks has a free level that will allow you to invoice up to three clients! You can choose to send the invoice via email or for an additional fee, you can snail mail the invoice to your client. The system interfaces with PayPal to allow quick and easy payment acceptance and with Outright to help with your accounting needs. Freshbooks has a list of add-ons on its website that allows you to connect easily to other online resources that will help you maintain the project management, customer support, marketing, and other areas of your business.
2) Mailchimp
Communication and staying in front of your clients, customers, or fans is key if you plan to build a successful company. Email is definitely the most economical and green method to use for this. There are many providers to help you get your message across to your audience. Mailchimp is one I have discovered. The provider will allow you to send up to 12,000 emails (total) per month to a mailing list of up to 2,000 subscribers and it will cost you NOTHING. In other words, Mailchimp will let you send six emails a month to 2,000 subscribers without it costing you a penny! (There are other levels if you need more but the free plan will get you started. I have to admit, I was not able to get Mailchimp to work like I wanted but there are many freelancers who use it successfully.
3) SocialOomph
Social media has become a major part of the marketing plan of businesses of all sizes. Freelancers and small businesses can easily reach the people who are most interested in what the company has and for free! By promoting your business to your friends and their network of friends, you automatically have a method of promotion that has your established reputation attached. Who better to refer you and your services or products to others than your friends? Statistics have been published that suggest the average Facebook user has about 130 friends. Having a Facebook fan page that is promoted by your friends has the potential to reach thousands of other Facebook users. All of that exposure is absolutely free! A tool like SocialOomph makes posting to that fan page easier. Instead of having to log into Facebook to post regularly, SocialOomph allows you the opportunity to enter and schedule as many posts as you want. Say you have 15 minutes and four ready-to-go posts on your hands, you can schedule Facebook posts for your fan page. If you just post one of those postings a week, when your 15 minutes are up you will be set for the next month’s worth of postings. Easy!
Whether you are a graphic designer, a virtual assistant, or a social media specialist, the bottom line is your business will need information systems if you want to run your business as efficiently as possible. These are just a few of the resources out there that can provide awesome support at little or no cost. There are many others, some may even be a better fit your specific needs. This list is only the start of the ones I have used. Many more are started daily! Watch for more articles in the future that will highlight some of these new resources.
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