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finshe

Hi, i'm self-employed and have just done my SOA but was wanting to know if i can add the expenses of the business such as stock. Any thoughts as to how the creditors might react. Thanks

Smart_Mart

nzmegs wrote: »

SmartMart - yeah it is/was sites such as Elance. What I did was mostly apply for UK writing jobs instead of american. There was less competition then. Peopleperhour is another UK one but there are so many people going for the same work. I applied for 3-6 elance jobs a day for two weeks until I got my first paid job. At an investment of $9.95 a month it was worthwhile.
You really need to have a good portfolio and offer plenty of examples of your writing until you get good feedback. Oh, and don't send off a bid which is generic. write each one based on what they want.
I got my first few jobs because i offerred silly rates but very quickly built up a relationship with my clients and was able to up my rates as they asked for new things.
I have three main clients who I have been writing for for more than a year and they trust me. it means that I am the first person they come to and I am very fair with how much i charge - so they keep coming back.
I now work privately with all three but still pick up bits and peices on Elance when I need an income boost.
My advice to you is to swallow your pride and don't expect to be paid loads at first and just apply for everything you think you can do and always meet deadlines!!

Good luck!

To be honest, the football club pay me for doing the website. Writing the articles for the programme is a voluntary role that I do in order to get some contacts and some experience. I've written around 50,000 words for them.

Hence if I was paid one penny for every 500 words I wrote, I'd still be getting more than I am now...:D

Horace

Finshe - if you are self employed and a sole trader then yes I would include the business in the SOA because where creditors are concerned business money isnt separate. Don't take my word though because there are others more experienced than I about such matters.

itsnowtime

Hi everyone...

Crikey this site has been busy for the last few days...

:hello: to all the new people that have joined us..

TCM, I hope you get sorted - I know what it's like to worry financially..

I'm busy working on getting my site search engine friendly. Not had any sales yet - but not actively marketed it either, so I'm not concerned on that front.

On the website front - anyone any experience of Pitney Bowes franking machines? I'm going to have lots of parcels to send out and they've offered me a machine on a 12 month contract for £9.95 +VAT per month - with a free 30 day trial and free £10's worth of postage.

I think it may be useful to have one as It will save me time going to the post office etc.. but just wondered if anyone has any experience.

I've also been offered a 12 month contract which I'm due to start next week. So excited... it does mean that I'll be employed and self employed but it is doing something that I love and it fits with my plan of running my own business undertaking training contracts - so all good. I have a final meeting about it tomorrow which should go well.

So I need to make sure I've 'cleared the decks' before Monday so that I have everything sorted and I feel organised.

For those of you who are on facebook & Twitter you can find a link to both of mine through my website. If you click on the link in my profile and then scroll down my homepage you will see a link to both facebook and twitter on there..They're both YourEcoWorld (if you prefer to do a search instead)

I also joined 4N too so maybe we'll get to meet at an event one day Horace? Not sure what time I will have now to attend as I'm going to be one very busy lady but as someone said to me last night - If you want a job doing give it to a busy person :cool:

Anyhoo best carry on with 'clearing the decks'

Enjoy the rest of the day..
x

nzmegs

SmartMart - perhaps it is time to ask for some sort of renumeration.... but having all that experience is brilliant.
perhaps what you need to do is double sell your articles. By this i mean when you have an interview lined up with someone (you have mentioned some famous names in the past) contact several editors at magazines and offer to let them see the article once finsihed. That way you write one article for your local club (for free) and another quite different article for the magazine/online mag. Don't overlap your material too much. I bet you find you have loads of quotes you never use and loads of angles you wish you could use - this is way to make those leftovers pay.
Also you have thousands of words of articles sitting at home which you can use. rewritten articles can be sold too. You just take a different angle and write it up quite differently. You then approach an online sports/football websites and offer a bulk deal on articles. Say 10 for £200. You don't want to annoy yur football club by selling the exact article - but as a writer you should be able to make it quite different fairly easily.

There's some good ideas - wish i had the time to do some of them myself!

With regards to pay I aim for around £20 per 500 words and if i can get it written in an hour then i am quids in. Doesn't often happen though!

Horace

Hi Snow - I remember an ex employer having a Pitney Bowes franking machine (back in the 80's), it was my job to haul the thing to the post office to be credited and then for some reason I didnt need to take it anymore and it was checked by the post office who realised that (how they knew I have no idea) that it hadnt been credited for a while - even the book that I had to take with me to the post office had disappeared:eek: I didnt get the blame though and I have a feeling that one of the bosses tinkered with it so we had thousands of free postage and yet I always turned the knobs to frank for first or 2nd class etc:eek: Or did the post office make a mistake? In fact most places that I have worked in have had a franking machine except for the University which had a central post room (like a mini sorting office where they would frank all the post).

Ask Pitney Bowes about their servicing requirements too and how much they will charge to service it? Will they give you a replacement if it breaks down? Act dumb and ask how you put credit on it.

If you are sending out a lot of parcels then it may make sense to have a franking machine.

I have 4N breakfast meetings coming out of my ears - tomorrow I am in Birmingham have passport will travel, need to take my actual passport as the meeting is in a casino:eek: I am having great fun and meeting some great people.

Well done for the contract too - good luck.

finshe

Horace wrote: »

Finshe - if you are self employed and a sole trader then yes I would include the business in the SOA because where creditors are concerned business money isnt separate. Don't take my word though because there are others more experienced than I about such matters.

Thanks Horace, i will pop it in the post tommorrow along with my payment reduction letter and cca request.:beer:

nzmegs

Snow - I used to use a franking machine at work too. I think they now work on a credit card type of arrangement. You put the card into the machine and it tops up with credit.

Take care when using it the first few time tho as I found it wasn't always accurate and forgets to reset itself. So you end up paying too much.

Horace - I am looking at 4networking. if it is business based I can't see how my husband would object. I do worry about networking tho and wonder if it is just money making for the organisers or if you can actually get clients from it. I guess it gets you out of the house tho!

Horace

Megs 4Networking is 50% business and 50% social (e.g. breakfast meetings) - people do get business from it because people chat on the forum and go to the breakfast meetings then you build relationships that way. One thing that I like about it is the fact that unlike the BNI where you pass around your business cards and have to make referrals and have to attend each week - 4Networking is better because you can go when you want to go (they allow you to attend 3 or 4 network breakfasts before you join anyway) and you get 3 10 minute 1-2-1 meetings with people in the room. At the end of the breakfast meeting there is a slot called 4sight and this is a slot run by businesses in 4N to discuss either ways of using social media (twitter etc) or photography and why photographs are important for your website as well as scores of other interesting businesses (they are not there to sell their product but to impart information).

Have a look at their online forum (its free to join that) https://www.4networking.biz - get involved on the forum if you can and everything falls into place. Some businesses are likely to have business from me, I am doing things for other groups (providing an empty hamper for one and some artificial snow for another). I also know that I shall get business from it.

Today's meeting in Redditch was funny and their attempt on the world record was foiled by me offering Cream Crackers which made everyone laugh, at the end of that session each person gets 40 seconds to stand up say who they are and what they do and basically how they can help..my spiel improves each time. Today we had a solicitor talking about how he was off to barnsley to talk to the fire service to decide who as at fault (or if the fire in question was purely accidental) - the fire was at a swingers club to which we all giggled.

Facebook is different as it is social networking where you can make friends and play games - business wise its ok but not brilliant.

moneymabel

Jp- my dogs black and white :-) I'll try and find you later and everyone else and add you.