My talk was about how to find a balance between your work and the rest of your life when you’re a freelance, something that’s especially hard when you’re passionate about your work:

Notes from Urs, and Jaap’s notes start at 8:51 in the CoverItLive box.

I’d never given this talk before, but I really enjoyed it, and I hope I can give it again at Going Solo Leeds, in September.

Made a fast transition from thinking “Oh, I’d like to go freelance” to finding a niche to work in. That’s not easy or simple. Being a soloist is not for everyone. The undertone of a lot of my presentation here is that you may not actually be suited, intellectually, emotionally or in skillset to be a soloist. In which case, you should plan to discover as quickly as possible if that is true. Start with an escape plan, “If this doesn’t work by such and such a time, I will have three plans: hire someone else to do my stuff, or sell the business, or take a job offer.” When you get on a boat you have to have life vests and rafts, just in case the boat doesn’t work.

It is terrifying. It’s frightening to jump into this and have to deal with everything at once. It’s like falling down an open elevator shaft. Best cure for the fear you have is, on one hand your escape plan, on the other creating advisory relationships with people who are successful freelances. Not just an occasional chat, but in depth relationships, and you try to take what they say on board. Create a mentor/protege relationship, and if they give advice, really try it. It’s like the relationship you might want to make in a dojo, learning a martial art. When you don’t have experience, just do what the sensei tells you. Without you, it is like falling down a lift shaft.

It’s about business. You need cash in hand to start up, you presumably have a planning time frame, and during that time, squirrel money away to support you in the beginning. Approach this as a business, build a spreadsheet, know how much money you need and what you’re going to spend it on. Know how you are doing, what your burn rate is, and whether you can afford to take a trip to a conference.

Like a business, you have to have all three things working for you. Natural tendency is not to have all three, so if we’re going to be successful we have to work against our natural type and push ourselves to do things that don’t seem natural:

– performing the work and enjoying it
– networking skills, meet people, explain who you are
– money: selling yourself, invoicing.

If you sell something you can deliver and then hire someone else to do it for you, you’re not a freelance anymore, and that’s fine – it’s a good way out.

Some people are good at invoicing but aren’t good at networking, so never have enough work. Can be dangerous, because end up enslaved to the clients you already have. Can become a slippery slope as they demand more and more of your time, and it becomes like you’re employed but get no benefits of employment.

Examine your character deeply. Understand what you are naturally like, and where you weakness is and address it.

Have a plan for how your business is going to work that suits your character and how that all fits together. Branding, how you deliver value, your ethical moral stance, how you interact with clients. Has to be all of a piece, has to work together.

Ten Day Rule: I’m going to only be able to bill for ten days a month, and have to do all the other things that I need to do in the rest of the time. The rest of the month, however I spend it, also includes all the non-billable stuff like going to conferences, email, admin, etc. Much of that should be me marketing my thinking in order to get people to ring me up and ask me to do work for it.

You have to therefore divide the money by 10 and that’s your day rate. But you need those ten days, and to start with you won’t get it. You will also have to vary depending on client, so some pay more, some pay less.

Important thing: No Assholes Rule. Have been screwed over by clients, but as I’ve got older and less tolerant, have learnt a simple model which works for me. When they screw you over once, you quit and you never work for them again. Learnt painfully that forgive and forget doesn’t work. Once they’ve rationalised this evil thing, it gets easier for them every time. It doesn’t get better if you try again, so cut the loss, get away from them and find someone else to work for. Try to discover as fast as possible if people are, in fact, not nice. Initial engagement is a day or two days, and during that time I check them out – do real work for them, and I deliver that’s something that’s of value, but I can also decide if I want to go forward with them. If I have any inclination there’s a problem, I can back out.

Even though I’m filtering, I still end up in a situation where I have to let people go. One company, at the end of the first year, gave me a document with a NDA and non-compete clause as part of the stock option deal. Said he wasn’t going to sign it and said goodbye to the stock.

Get it in writing – write it down from the very beginning. Have an open discourse about what their expectations are, what their money expectations are. Don’t put it off – this is business. If possible, get a signature, and definitely try to get at least 50% of the money in advance.

Have published a blog post which is called “How I roll”, which is philosophy of what I’m doing and how to do it, things like “If I’m travelling then I will not live off hotdogs; If you want receipts ask for them in advance”. Very helpful to clients, gives them an idea of your expectations. Not everything should be negotiated from scratch with each client.

Look for client engagements in which there’s a strategic level of involvement. Have clients I’ve worked with for three years or more. You have to determine in your work based on what the duration should be. Make it seem that what you’re doing is as similar as possible to what they do. So, when working with a start up, talk about what it’s like to be a founder, actively looks for equity in a company.

Combos. A good metaphor is that you are an independent musician with a career as a a soloist, but that doesn’t stop you playing in a group. Get into a combo model. Your independent brand is very important, but sometimes it’s fun to get together with people. Fun to pull other people together to help clients. Can make it much easier to have a holiday if you have a group of people working together.

Am interested in equity, working with start-ups, often don’t have a lot of capital, but do have equity. “Advisory capital” – investing time in a company and would like to get a reward. Haven’t got anything big, but did get a cheque big enough for a car, but do have a pile of stock and some companies are looking very successful. But like a VC, I’m then looking at opportunities to see if they are going to make it, it’s not just how much money are they willing to pay me today. That may not work in every sector, and in some areas/sectors/countries it might even be prohibited, but it’s an interesting idea that almost anyone might be able to contemplate.

Main recommendations:
– Have an exit strategy. Some of us will be freelance until we die. Other people have other different endgames. Are you ever going to want to walk away from your consulting practice and what sort of a walk-away is that? Acquisition? Turn into a business? Transformational interim period and get a job? But start with those goals in mind. Get a business plan in which you have those deadlines in mind. It’s really not for everyone.

Q: How do you organise yourself?
It’s very variable. At the moment I’m on a tour to see a number of clients and go to conferences, but still in contact with clients in the US. Not partitioned, but does become neater when at home, when I’m more regimented in my life. I’m productive in my morning, so don’t want to pollute my mornings with interactions with humans. By 4pm I’m non-functional but can still do email. When I’m travelling, I’d prefer to have three half-days in the afternoons, but ends up being one and a half days in a lump.

Q: ?
The first skill is always being able to do your job. The second skill is networking, and that is where you learn new stuff, and the last skillset includes getting the money, sales, closing the deal, writing and getting the contract signed, paying your taxes – back office stuff. A lot of people are great at negotiating what they do, but they’ll never get the contract signed so they never start.

Q: You mentioned advisory capital? How do you decide that? Do you decide or do they?
It’s a combination. I’ve been very public about it, so they may have heard about it and I talk about it very openly about it from the beginning. Have to be very choosy about who to pick. I look for a team that’s got a great idea and a good team, and they’re just missing one thing – me. So it’s a very peculiar circumstance. But that means there aren’t many of them.

This panel is about the community aspect of going solo, how to fight isolation, and as a soloist you are going to be in a situation where you have to collaborate with other people, work in teams, so how are you going to manage this collaboration aspect of your work.

Moderator: Stephanie Booth
Stephanie Troeth
Linda Broughton
Laura Fitton

Going to conferences is an important part of being a freelance, as is having some sort of social watercooler space, e.g. Twitter. Need a balance between being alone and being with others.

Laura: Key thing is layered interactions, online, offline. What drew me into Twitter was someone who was Twittering something interesting, four days after engaging with Twitter saw a ‘tweet-up’, i.e. ad hoc meeting in a bar, and that drew her into a social events in a new city. So met people in real life, and got to know them, and their contacts, and layering that is important. If you live rurally, make a point to go to conferences to meet people.

Linda: Run a co-working space, which is run like a gym so there’s membership, but it’s designed to be entry level, so it’s affordable. Feedback from members about co-working when told that she was coming here, and the themes were that they loved co-working, because the life hey had before was a bit unhealthy, not getting out enough, and co-working was the best of both worlds People might come in one or two days, some people come in every day, so they use it how they need and want to use it. Asked them what they didn’t like, and mainly it was that the space wasn’t open 24-7, but that’s a good thing. We can’t open 24/7, but you can come in at 7am, and get thrown out at 9.30pm, so that’s not too bad.

For those who don’t know what co-working is, it is a physical space, so it has desks, water, coffee, quiet areas, meeting areas and meeting rooms, printing facilities, and 30″ plasma screens, Macs and software. You can come and go as you please. Also have a couple of start-ups there, there’s some blurring between freelance and entrepreneurs, as people start off as freelance, meet others, and maybe start up a new business. Tends towards being technology people, and people like it because they get to meet others. Also liked the very prestigious business address, for some clients it’s reassuring that you have a famous old building in Leeds on your business card.

StephT: Very difficult because I live it. But to add a bit of context to what’s been said before, the story of how I stumbled upon Twitter. Way back before Twitter was big, a friend from Melbourne pinged me to say “Use Twitter”, these were five guys I knew that I was following and it was just like the old days, being in one space. For other contexts, creating that atmosphere that you would have if you were in a physical space together.

Q: Linda, what were the steps that you went through to start it? How did you find the space? Did you get funding?
Linda: We had some European capital funding to set up the space. There’s a problem with not having enough start-up businesses, so we put in a bid for the refurbishment of the building. Have no revenue funding. Community was people working on the web, so when we started the project, went to the places where these people were, e.g. the Geek Up meetings, so met people, talked to them, and it mushroomed from there. Had a BarCamp in Leeds, and it was at the time launched, so it was networking and of course people now blogging about it, 700 photos on Flickr, and just using all those social media but a lot of physically going and talking to people.

Q: How do I get the best out of a co-working space?
Linda: People arrange to meet people there, go at least once a week, and it’s interesting. People worry that they won’t get as much done because they are chatting, but people generally do get as much done. Use the meeting space, but if you don’t need to use it, maybe you won’t benefit for co-working, because it’s not for everyone. Maybe our community’s more about sharing, but the architects couldn’t wait to leave.

StephT: Montreal opened a co-working space, which I joined. I found I would go there more if I organised my meetings there. This is something that I haven’t decided on, because I’m always on conference calls so wanted to test if it’s possible to do that whilst at a co-working space.

Stowe: One trick is that I put my 30″ monitor, and that makes work a lot easier, so if I’m going to do anything, I have to get up and go to the office. You have to do whatever you need to do to go to the office, because going to the office and leaving the office is very good for a working mindset. So I keep the chocolate at the office.

StephB: Does the social aspect help?
Stowe: The guys I work with in the building are architects, so when they are talking it just doesn’t register. When I worked in a space where people were talking about tech, I couldn’t help but listen.

Q: Where is Twitter going for business purposes.
Laura: That’s a huge intellectual and business research project for me at the moment. But almost Twitter alone took me from being a house-bound Mum to speaking at conferences. I have amazing mentors on Twitter, people who’ve shared with me. I’ve almost completely abandoned RSS because I see stuff on Twitter instead. I see a ton of apps that businesses are wasting money on, that I think tools like Twitter could break a lot of logjams in the enterprise. And there’s a marketing aspect too. There are a billion applications, but one of them is the ‘watercooler with a brain’.

StephT: There are lots of technologies, e.g IRC. You can create a space where several people can talk. With Twitter, I feel like I’m walking through a space when everyone is talking and if I hear something interesting I can have a conversation. But when you need to create a contained communications space you need a different tool, so if you want to be alone together, then chat is useful. A lot of chat tools are not secure, though, so things like IRC, which works very well on an unstable networks. That’s the tool I prefer and use most when I run teams. Teams of freelances, spread out in Canada and the US, and there are time-zone issue, and if you’re working on the project right now, hop into IRC so we know who’s working on it and we can deal with issues. Creates a nice atmosphere, and you get to know one another.

StephB: How do mailing lists compare?
StephT: I think we’re kind of immune to email these days. I find people behave differently in chat compared to email. Email can take a long time to reply, and IRC or any other chat room, can even do it on Skype but there tends to be a delay, you have a more instantaneous response, have a proper conversation and a richer contribution. Skype calls are useful too, have a daily call, so that the team gets to know each other. Sometimes it’s really simple of what they’re planning for the day, or it could be a brainstorm, and people help each other out. Campfire is a chatroom that ties into Basecamp.

Q: What specific things concerning freelances, what problems do you have in managing freelance teams.
StephT: First problem is that freelances work on more than one project. Do you tell project managers when you’re going to get stuff done, or do you tell them? Difficulty is the milestones, how to make them realistic, how much time should it take – there’s no quick solution. My team, which seams to work, is a development team, so it’s all managing tasks. When we decide to build the site, we decide functionalities, break it down to what each function should do. If a task takes longer than four hours we break it down. Every week we assign the task, and we update every day how people are doing. Easy to say ‘Is this going to take longer?” and then we know, every day, what is going to take longer. Know how much time basic functionality takes to do, then can work backwards and can put milestones in place, check with everyone that they’re on track. If someone’s ill and there’s a problem the client can decide what they want to do, whether to hire in extra people or wait.

Q: From perspective of developers, what are the main problems they have?
StephT: The most difficult thing is how much time they want to commit to a project and communicating that up front. It’s always approximate, because you can never be sure.

StephB: Interesting question, in what way are we challenging the people that we work with?
Laura: I often work with huge corporations, and the difficulty is not having the ebb and flow, and when are they in the middle of a crunch, or when would be a good time to brainstorm. When your’e not in the middle of their culture, there’s a lot you need to pull out of them to understand how their work lives go and how to work with that.

StephT: We run everything through Basecamp because it keeps track of everything that’s said. Do you think that having regular contact helps?

StephB: The clients I have are remote, so face to face is not an option.

Stowe: Larger the corporation, the more likely it is that they are using email from their Blackberry. They are unlikely to be using on Web 2.0 tools.

StephB: Linda, you work with start-ups?
Linda: The community is quite diverse, some start-ups, some freelances, some who aren’t sure what they are.

StephB: Freelances and start-ups have a lot in common, they are usually their own boss. Do you have anything to say about the challenges freelances face when they meet corporate clients?
Linda: Yes, one guy gives a presentation on ‘Top ten mistakes I made in my first week’, and it was all about how he felt that he’d been screwed over by his first five clients. Now we have more experienced freelancers, so there’s a lot of learning that goes on between people in the community. New people have new ideas, and I think you need to be a certain type of person to get something out of it, I think if you think you know everything it probably isn’t for you, but you’re committing to give something back to the community. We ask people to sign up to the principles of that community, and not just be a place to work.

Load of people have panic attacks about where the next client is coming from, where’s the work coming from, and so new freelances panic and take on too much work. Lots of painful lessons that people are learning. Added bonus of co-working space, though, is that people who need freelancers are ringing the space and asking for recommendations.

Linda: So a good source of referrals.

StephB: So a lot of what they are getting out of it is similar to Going Solo, in that people are learning stuff from their peers, and facilitating access.

Linda: Yes, people do pass work on to others, because they know them and trust them.

StephB: Comment about pricing plan and the way people pay. Most of my work happens at home, and I’m quite happy there and until recently I haven’t felt the need for a second space, but lately, especially in preparing Going Solo, I really needed a space that was work, and one that was not work. I wouldn’t mind having an office, but not five days a week. I have a use for one maybe three half-days a week. Not going to rent an office or desk in Lausanne for three half days, so a co-working community could provide the flexibility I need.

Linda: We’ve priced it so that if you have that need, it’s a fair price. Still get people, such as students, who want to use it for free and it’s important that it’s not a free space. We do need more members, and the community is only as good as the people who are in it, and the pricing policy is set to not be a barrier. Given that it’s aim is helping people who are starting out, we do have some great mentors and some successful entrepreneurs, and they give their time free. They will give one to one advice on ideas and plans, and one of the things they do is give advice on who might back a business, which helps us achieve our bigger goal to help more businesses start.

Laura: There are so many tactics and tools and things to throw at the wall, you need to figure out what works for you. Once met someone on a similar trajectory, and would swap a To Do list, and then check in each day – just a trick for accountability. Dying for a co-working space in Boston. When I’m working with someone who’s focused, I work better. Become embarrassed to procrastinate in front of other people.

StephT: Like in team work, have to work out how the team is going ot work, and it always stumbles to start with so have to be patient.

StephB: Have done similar thing on Skype, leaving it open, not really talking but just letting each other know what I was up to.

Dennis: Wondered whether you feel that the rise of social media tools has changed the environment in which you work? Does it make co-working more possible?
Linda: Yes, it goes together, it’s part of the open source community and it’s a cultural thing. That’s why some people hate it, because they’re not part of that culture.

Laura: Used to use Twitter to hold myself accountable when I wanted to do a yoga move each day. Didn’t want to overload to people, so invited people to ask her if she had done her meditation and gone for a walk.

StephB: Seesmic,com thread called ‘Fun with Goals’, which is about taking a task that you’ve been putting off for ages, and work on it for 15 minutes. Found a task and did it, and then posted a Seemic video, and it felt less lonely. Having an audience helps getting some stuff done. Also very bad with admin stuff, so set a date for Worldwide Administrivia day, so we all in our own places on the same day dealing with paperwork, filing, accounting, and shared it on Twitter and Seesmic. Just seven people, each in their corner alone, but connected in some way.

StephB: Flipside to the coin of online connection is offline connection.

Q: Work with people in the US so miss out on the face-to-face stuff, and miss out on offline discussions which are important for work. People talk about stuff without me when it’s part of the job. How do you make sure that no one gets left out?

StephT: That’s where the daily call really works. That time zone sensitivity is very hard, but daily check-ins, as a team, really work. Need to see that these are valuable, need a good chair to ensure meeting is efficient. Need to get people to understand that if they have an offline conversation they need to bring it back online to include those who are remote. Psychology of teams is that they either thing that you’re dispensable or shouldn’t have a responsibility, and that’s a separate problem. Weekly meetings, or every two days, but a regular difference.

Q: The 9 hour problem is a killer. So if I have a problem in the morning, they come into the office in the evening, and my day is over. I know I won’t get an answer before the next day, so if they don’t reply I have to wait another day.
StephT: Hard to train people to work internationally.

StephB: Many of you still have questions and probably for other topics that we saw at Going Solo so that we can keep the conversation going.

How can we work in a way that we actually get the things done that we want to get done. It becomes especially puzzling when we choose our job – as freelances, we choose what we do. So we have a job we like, but still we doing it. Found the answer today – chap in the audience has T-shirt saying 98% chimp, and that’s it. We’re monkeys. There’s nothing wrong with it, but they’re not so useful. We have to be useful, if we don’t feel useful, we don’t feel happy, and nobody’s paying us.

We can self-organise and get things done. Talking about systems for organising ourselves. The system that matters is you, and your brain. We build systems to let this brain system operate better. When I talk about systems and self-organisation, it’s not about building a better system, it’s about using systems so that you can do what you do better.

To use your brain, you have to get all the stuff that is in there out, into a trusted system. We know a lot, but the problem is, when you focus on one task, and you have 50 or 500 other tasks in your head you will not be effective. So the basic principle of almost any system is to get the stuff that you’re thinking about out of your head so you can focus on things to get things done. If you use the GTD system you’ll know this.

How do you get stuff out of your head? Write it down. all your thinking about tasks, it’s your projects you are working on, want to work on, should be working on but are not. Everything. Collect it by writing it down, and collect it in an inbox – a physical inbox. Do this even if you use a computer. But make these things physical and collect them into a box into which everything goes.

In seminars, this usually takes people half an hour to get done. End up with something like 300 items, seems a lot, and it is a lot. The reason to do this is not to start worrying about having 300 items to do, the reason is to see the reality. Always think about lots and lots and lots of things, but we can only do one thing at a time. Collect everything, then convert it into an action. So you’ve collected a Moo card, what next? Convert it into an action. What are you going to do? Call them? File it? Figure out what the action is and then write that down. This is very boring. It’s writing list of To Dos. End up with lots of lists of things to do. But the point is to have a complete overview of what you have to do, want to do, etc. But the thing is that then you can focus on your task and ignore everything else.

Martin uses software called Things, but there are other tools.

Most people have 300 items, but realise about 50 of them are so stupid that they can throw them away because you are just not going to do it. Throw out as much as you can. If you doubt a task, throw it away. If it turns out to be important, it will come up again.

Then organise by context – where can you do this task, e.g. office, home, telephone, offline. Martin travels a lot, and hates working on a mobile phone on a train. So he filters so that he can do the tasks that are possible on a train. Context varies, in your office you can do most anything, but other tasks can only be done in a certain place. So filter list to what you can work on now.

How many things can you focus on? One. So focus on one thing, the one thing you want to do right now. You need to make a conscious decision on what you are going to do. How do you decide?

– by context, can you do what you need to do.
– by importance, makes sense to do the important things first, but we don’t, we do the nice things first.
– by energy, how do you feel? do you feel energised? no? this works in the other way, when you have bad days, there are a lot of tasks that are very boring, and these go well with bad moods or low energy days. one part in his to do list for mid-afternoon when he feels unfocused, usually stuff that’s away from the computer.
– by time available, seems obvious but we overlook that. we don’t use it to organise our lists, part of his list is ‘offline’, which is basically train time. use train times for focused tasks where he doesn’t want to be interrupted.

Decide consciously what you want to do. Do one thing, finish it, then move on. Don’t get caught up in other things. If you’re using a computer based To Do list, it’s useful to chose one item then close the system, work on that item, then open the system. Don’t switch between different tasks, or between organising tasks and doing them.

Don’t start the day by checking email, because that just creates more tasks. Instead, decide what to do next and do that. Email will always come.

Procrastination is interesting, because only humans do it. Why don’t we do these things that we want to do? To research into this, used Twitter, asked two days ago “Everyone: Pls send me the task from your todolist that you have been procrastinating longest! Will use it for my talk at Going Solo..”

Got a reply from me!: “Suw: @martinroell jsut the one? that’s hard… clear out my email inbox is probably the one thing that’s always on my list but never gets done”

More detail about it: “it says “reduce inbox to 0” as an overall project then “reduce inbox by 100″ as a action. and i never do it.”

Problem – to get rid of email, you create 50 things in your inbox. But a more fundamental reason why this doesn’t work – reduce inbox by 100 is not an action, it cannot be done. This is why some GTD systems work and some don’t – it’s what do you consider to be a task. No. 1 response was ‘tax declaration’.

Has to be “Look at first email in inbox and decide what to do with it.” The wording of the to do items is very important. Has to be what is the next action, not about something that will happen, it’s looking at the first email. That’s something you can do. A tax declaration is not something you can do, you can get the paperwork together, but a tax declaration is a project not an action item.

How are you working your to do list? Is it really an action? If you do this, it becomes clear that the the stuff you are procrastinating is the stuff that you aren’t clear on the first step of. If you don’t know what the first step is, you won’t do it.

Other thing is to work on a task for half an hour or one hour. This task may feel like it’s going to take three years, but do them for one hour, just begin, and begin again, and begin again, and at some point it will be done. You can’t do it all in one go.

There is no magic formula. But a lot of it is down to you, it’s discipline. There’s no person or method in the world that can help you get things done, it’ down to you. Discipline is a silly word, so really it’s more Strength and Balance, so strength to do the things you need to do. You won’t have a great day every day. There will be days when you don’t want to do it but you have to do it.

Areas to develop discipline, that you can use to see that you can do things no matter what condition you are in. You can do things every day no matter how much work you have, or what move you’re in.

– meditation, 5 mins in the morning every morning is enough.
– sleep, try getting up at the same time every morning, no matter what. you can go back to sleep, but try waking up at the same time.
– music
– cleaning your room

Distinguish between work and not-work. Might be a time in the day, but important to distinguish.

– build a system
– break down your projects into the first small step, make sure that step is doable
– begin the day by doing one important thing, before checking email or anything else. sometimes that will be enough for the entire day. start the day like that and you will set yourself up for success.
– distinguish work from not work. not just about being more effective in your work, but also about having a life, and to be able to switch off, stop worrying about work when you’re not working. Get this stuff out of your head, your mind will start trusting it that when you come back to the system everything will be there. Even if you’re not into doing more things, the same principles will help you create a better balance between work and private life.

Q: How do you do with IM? With 10 people IMing you all the time?
Martin: You have to have discipline. I switch it off completely if I want to focus.
Stowe: It has to become etiquette that it’s polite to ignore someone if you’re not able or want to respond.

Q: I find it hard to disconnect mentally.
Martin: There’s no hack, it’s just practice. Obviously meditation is an obvious thing, but also shorter work days, and just keep practice. There’s no way to switch off your mind, it doesn’t work that way. That’s why discipline thing is in there, as there’s no other way.

Q: One thing I find is that when I’m working on something and I have to read a link, and end up following a link trail, how do you break that?
Martin: No way to break it, but I use a tool for that, but noticing that you’re doing it is the first step, once you notice what you do, I’d then put the URL into the inbox and later create a task for it, and think about whether I want to go back later. So the moment I notice, I turn it into an inbox item, then it becomes an action. Interests change so fast that most things turn out to be not important the next day.

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If you live in the UK, you’ll have seen the ad, “Tax doesn’t have to be taxing”, yeah, right. We’ve all got to pay tax, so get on with it and get over it, but you don’t need to leave a tip. You don’t need to pay more than you’re legally bound to. Avoidance is legal, but use the rules; evasion is illegal and there are hefty fines, government grabs assets and there may be jail time. In France, if you fall foul of the tax guys there, they seize your assets and freeze your bank account and ask questions later.

Beware the exotic when it comes to tax avoidance – if it looks weird it’s probably dodgy.

Don’t be stupid. Don’t be a smart ass. You’ll get caught.

Offshoring. Different countries have different attitudes. Some don’t like tax, but some actively hate it. What that means is:

UK – into avoidance
Fr 27-30% of GDP in shadow economy
Germany – actively avoid and evade
UK – will avoid, sometimes dumb
Spain – Evasion is a national sport, 25% of economy is in cash. Dennis had to pay 33% of his house price in cash. Even the government takes property tax only in cash.
Italy – three sets of accounts – go figure! “One for me, one for the government, one for the tax man”

Spain has found it so difficult to collect income tax they tax property instead Location is important, where you conduct your business is important. If you have a British business, doesn’t matter where you live you’ll pay tax. Tiny Roland was one of a very small no. of person who could legitimately claim he didn’t live anywhere.
Where you are born matters, esp UK/US as if you’re American you’ll have to pay tax wherever you are.
Rules are not consistent around the world.

Mostly you’re taxed where you live, except if you’re a US citizen you are taxed regardless of where yul live and/or. If you were not born but live and work in the UK you can get tax free income.

Company – operating through a company may bring no benefit if the structure isn’t right. £150 to set up a company in the UK, in France is now €1, was €7500. You are using it to avoid tax plus. Special problems in the UK with Managed Service Companies.

Not just income tax, but also wealth tax and social security costs.

UK: is probably best, 48% top tax rate
France: 61%
Spain: expensive, but only if you pay it.

In some European countries it is not worth employing people as a person running a small business. This can mean it’s not worth being in business at all. France is very difficult for employing people, so in summer, there are bars and restaurants that shut whilst the owners go away because they can’t afford to employ people.

If you live somewhere because of the lifestyle it will be expensive. Usually social security costs – mandatory pensions etc – that cost the money.

Don’t move anywhere for tax reasons, live where you want to and deal with the tax. Get good local advice, and not the guys down the pub. Tax is complicated and the guy down the pub doesn’t know.

Accounting stuff:
Keep it simple. DIY or get help? There is no right answer. If you feel comfortable with it, fine, if not, get help because time is money and you don’t want to get it wrong. Most electronic accounting systems are based on a theory that’s 6000 years old, and weren’t invented with you in mind.

Alternatives, used or engaged with by Dennis at some point:
Blinksale – for invoicing
Freshbooks – does time, billing, etc.
FreeAgent – soup to nuts, does billing and taxes along the way

There are country-specific alternatives.

Spreadsheets – accountants love them but they are prone to error and difficult to maintain.

Need to save. Few people do. But save as much as the government will allow you, no less than 10%.

Think about how you manage money
– 40-50% for taxes
– claim everything you’re allowed
– keep account simple
– take advice
– save 10%
– enjoy the rest!

Q: Where do you find advice?
Dennis: Ask your network, someone will know someone who can do this. People only recommend people that they trust. Look for others who’ve done something similar, then getting advice.
Stowe: There are benefits to being in the US, you can write off a lot more, the tax is lower, but in general it’s lower.
Dennis: When you bring it all together, yes. But when you add health insurance it gets expensive, and that’s another form of tax.

Q: Tips for cross border billing, e.g. billing from Portugal and billing in the US, there’s the currency angle, but anything tax-wise?
Dennis: No tax issues, as in most places you’re taxed on what you earn not what currency it is in.

Q: Billing in Europe, if you’re in Switzerland, and I have to deal with a lot of Euros, and Swiss banks are very expensive for Euros, so we have an account in Germany because that’s cheaper, save thousands of Euros a year. Other thing about Switzerland, depends on which canton you’re dealing with. Have one canton the tax man is helpful, elsewhere they’ll shoot you first.
Dennis: Same in France.

Q: There are rules you don’t know about, so good to hire a professional accountant?
Dennis: Distinction, you can keep your own books and records so you can manage your cash. Small business people are quire poor at doing that. But always get help on specifics.

Moving from one place to another, need to learn a whole new system, so if you enjoy it and like it that’s fine, but otherwise need advice.

Q: Is my hairdresser a business expense?
Dennis: No. The rule is that if you could use it in another context, then it’s not a business expense. If you’re a musician or artist and you have clothes that are only used on stage, they are a business expense. It’s a pretty universal rule, but there are local nuances.

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Stephanie Booth
It’s not enough to just know how to do my job, to do what I get paid for. To be successful you need business skills and these often, particularly if you became a freelance by passion, you might not have had a chance to learn them. Going Solo is a chance to fill this gap, and have a chance to learn from others’ experience. This is what we naturally do, when we have a problem we ask friends who are in the business who’ve done it before. That’s how the speakers were choses – they’re all freelancers.

Lots of freelances in the internet industry. Technology evolves very fast and for many things we do as freelances, there’s no real training or schooling in academia or professional schools. We’ve learnt on the job and maybe there are no positions in companies for what we’re doing because we’re too cutting edge or too in advance of what’s viable in a big company.

[Steph asks the audience what roughly attendees do. Many are consultants, developers, with a few journalists, designers in the mix too.]

Laura Fitton
Known because of Twittering, oddly, but investment of time is responsible for all incoming business, a lot of professional networks and mentoring, but people she’s met in the 9 months she’s been in Twitter blows her mind.

Why do you get hired when you get hired? Responses from audience: Reputation. Don’t know anyone else who can do it.

You as a unique individual, the company should want you as a person, not what you do as a commodity. Need to learn who you are, what you do uniquely. When people contact her is not because they want her to pitch, they want to already hire her.

Many companies/consultants just hide from web 20. Point of all these techs, approaches, etc. is to create gravity – the pre-existing condition that allows people to pick up the phone and say they want you. If you have good ideas and get them out there you can shortcut the old-school book method, instead blog, appear in podcasts, and draw people to you because of that.

Lots of talk about monetising social media, using ads. Don’t think that’s the point. The point is how it builds value and therefore business. All this hype and fuss about social media is nothing new.

Lives very heavily on Twitter. Gathers opinions from Twitter. Asked for one tip for people who want to use these tools. Themes were

– give it a try
– be useful, “Don’t annoy me or else I’ll tell my friends you suck”, and it is that casual.
– be helpful
– be friendly
– find the best audience, do research – plenty of freelances whose audiences are not on social media, although it’s still useful to be there because it increases your authority, they don’t need to find you through social media, if you can point them to your blog that’s useful. Can send anyone in the world to your blog.

HOw do ou know what you know? People tell you. Knowledge is socially mediated. Markets are likewise socially mediated – people trust their friends, referrals are very important.

What sort of social media presence do you have? What does your welcome mat say when people visit your blog? Not shortcuts, to this. There are the tips from Twitter, be helpful. You get what you give away. Ideas are a dime a dozen, what you are being hired for is not your ideas but your unique execution and your unique application of your ideas to a problem.

Giving time away – don’t do too much, if someone’s asking for free consulting you say “I”m really sorry, my commitment to my paying clients prevents me from doing that”. One example is that there are things like speaking opportunities, which Laura has a lot of. Was asked to speak for free, but said “I’m sorry, I can’t do it for free but I can do a quid pro quo” and got an hour and a half with the PR company in exchange. Picking brains lunches – it’s appropriate to draw the line.

What are the things that truly matter?
– Listen. Don’t worry too much about what you say, outbound communications. Listening is far more important. Any new community online that you’re looking to approach and be involved in, the most important thing to do is go in and listen before you engage.
– Be human. we’re so fixated on our professional appearance, can be so straight-laced, but it’s important to give a sense of your human voice on your blog. So show them you as a person with some well-rounded soul. YMMV, so know yourself. What are the unique ways that you work?
– When approaching your blog, be useful. Provide something that’s of value. You can change the point of view of your messaging: change the point of view to that of your audience.

Stowe said he sells “advisory capital”, but the user buys “a faster route to success”; a financial advisor sells “less stress and hassle”. How has the client condition changed after working with you? Useful both in direct and indirect communications. Focus on results you leave for your client.

– Be helpful. ComcastCares is on Twitter trying to reach out to people who have problems with Comcast. NOw, you can’t help everyone one-on-one, but answering questions helps more than just the asker.
– Get out and network.
– Be sincere. That will be picked up on. If you start trying to spam and brag and promote yourself, you need to build your value.

Most important thing is to give up control. The command and control age is over, that’s what the Cluetrain is about, and you need to learn to ride it. Let go, relax, engage in these conversations.

Questions
Stowe: Made the comment that this is ancient wiring, but the idea of surrendering control is new.
Laura: We had a public level of communications which was all very formal, and then we had the personal communications, so the stuff we already know about interacting personally are now being done on the public level. Old had two tiers, but the public/formal one is becoming public/informal. It’s very easy to go online and find someone. You don’t want to be on a commodity level, so to show how unique your ideas are you need to share those ideas very freely. Blogging for business, felt like it was a database of ideas to share.

Rochenda: How did you become known by Twitter?
Laura: I used to think that Twitter was dumb, and it’s fine to think that Twitter is dumb, had 250 people following in August, now it’s 3800. Bit of a tricky pony, people think I’m funny, but I’m also passionate. Engage very openly. People who find her through Twitter do hire her for her main area of consultancy in presentation advice. But having 3800 followers is not the point. It’s not about the numbers, it’s about engaging with the people who will sustain you. Surround with an incoming stream of information, have a peer community, it’s inspiration, support, ideas, challenge. That was the entry drug, and that alone is a great use of Twitter. You derive it and then you give it back. It’s what you give to the system that will pay you back. doesn’t have to be Twitter – what can I give? What about time suck? If you’re still printing brochures, paying for websites, then investing appropriately in social media, which isn’t free because it’s your time and your time is billable, that investment will pay off. But don’t spend time watching TV, reduced cold-call networking, cold-call meetings. A lot of that has been eliminated, so when does go to events, usually have pre-connected with the people there. Don’t just leave these relationships floating out in the online world but to pull them into the real world. Strongest relationships are those with people that I’ve met in person too. Build human connections is a multilayered process.

Q: I deal with bankers and they’re not even on Twitter. They don’t give a hoot about blogging or anything else. they are busy doing other things. I have a blog since 2000 which deals with information security and risk, but most of these people dont’ want to comment. Now I have a social media blog and you guys are really chatty. But the risk people dont’ want to come in, they call you, or they email. What your’e telling me is nice, but I think there’s a cultural thing you have to consider. I’m amazed by Americans, the way you Twitter, you make fun of yourselves, I could never have one of my guys do that, it’s not “what we do”.
Laura: I am very silly, I say words liek “suck”, but that’s my audience. And you have to put it in their language. What are the things that they hire you for?

Same chap: I have two kids on my Twitter feed, and they are banker’s kids, and the bankers found out about me through their kids. Because I deal with problems and those are compliance and security issues, they dont’ want it on emails, or on Google. Goes back to relationships, trust, confidence, and I appreciate your presentation, but depending on the country you’re in, and the business you’re in, you’re going to have to find a different way. Twitter is not going to work for me. But I think one gets, I get ideas from Twitter, it’s not my clients, they are not on Twitter, I have to find them through something else.
Laura: It’s not necessarily these tools where you’re pulling in clients, but because you have the blog, and that’s where they can find out about you.

Same chap: Yes, but he doesn’t use RSS, he wants it by email.
Laura: If he’s not on RSS then give it to him by email. Use the tools the way your clients to – use email, use Google, continually send articles to ex-clients if you have written something they might be interested in. You need to get to where the audience is, and give them what they want. Most presentations suck because they’re in the language of the presentation and not the language of the audience, so think about that across all your social media networks.

Dennis: Want to talk to our banking friend. What we’re really talking about here really is change. I ‘m building a community of chartered accountants, have 75k, and when people say “oh they don’t want to do it”, well maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow.

Laura: To talk a bit more about culture, there’s been a lot of talk about people having to clean up their Facebook so that they are attractive to employers. That’s ok to some extent, but if you’re doing it too much you have to ask if these are the people you really want to work with? People hire me because they like my style and they know I’ll work hard when they need me to.

Q: Is Twitter good for everyone? Say yoga teachers?
Laura: Twitter is good for one type of person: Humans. There are five yoga teachers I know of on Twitter, so go talk to them. Twitter is like a big pool of water, and within that pool you go and find the fish. Even if you’re highly specialised, you will find people talking about it.

Q: How do you introduce Twitter to people who are not early adopters?
Laura: Find something that’s of interest to them. Find people who do what they do, and then introduce them, and point out relevant questions from people. Package that together so they see utility in the stream. Also tell them the names of people on Twitter they might find interesting. But Twitter comes to people eventually, but again, take Twitter out of the mix – whatever tool it is, you have to find what’s useful and relevant. Trying to explain blogging to my father, who thinks blogs are useless. He’s a Redsox fan, so went to a baseball player’s blog. Before then, her dad could only rant about what the sports writer said, but now he can actually talk to the baseball player himself. Find something.

Q: Me – struggled last year with a lot of people wanting to “pick my brains” over coffee, and basically digging for free consulting.
Laura: Picking brains OK at a conference, thing but try not to get roped into the coffee chat, and it’s a way to network, but there are plenty of ways for someone to get to know me. Really can’t honour the lunch requests that come through Twitter, so using terms like ‘Out of respect to my paying clients’ or ‘Out of respect for my commitments, I’d be happy to help or answer questions by email’. Some interview questions are really bad because people clearly not read previous articles. People respect you when you respectfully and if they really push it, say, ‘Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t realise you were looking for your consulting’, or point them to places to go. Respect yourself and know that you don’t scale. You feel bad turning people down, but you have put you’ve already given, doesn’t mean you have to keep giving just because you are asked. Have a friend who has a hard time saying no when asked for more advice. Be honest, be forthright, and you already know you’re being useful. Invest wisely, you have to be respectful of their time too.

Q: Have you found that through your social media, in trying to be human, that the human didn’t come across because of cultural issues. Have you found that people you’ve ended up working for where pushed away at first because they couldn’t relate to you?
Laura; That’s hard to answer because the people who were put off don’t come to me, so I can’t find out. I can’t think of an example where someone’s said “Oh, by the way, I really hated when you I first started reading you”.

One example is a talk that they gave in India at an architectural college. Talked to the professor for three hours before about what these women were about, what drives them. Found out that 60% of them were never going to practice, so didn’t just talk about architecture, talked about other things.

Another example, listen to your own mobile outgoing message, as that’s a very short presentation.

Screwing up is important. The human being who has made a mistake, and acknowledged it, their stock shoots right up. Be willing to make the mistake and be fully accountable for it.

Stowe: That’s very American.
Laura: So I made a mistake! A lot of these issues are past/future – so things change.

Rochenda: What I learnt in terms of trying to bridge that cultural divide, for me, I’m very emotional, and I realised that I get very emotional about terrorism, things of that nature, but if I get emotional, even if my message is good it doesn’t go over. So I try to pull my emotions down, it’s hard, but I don’t seem as excited. I try to calm myself down.

Q: What if you don’t speak English? What does Twitter look like?
Laura: Twitter’s not just in English. There are thousands of Japanese speakers on Twitter. The important thing is about understanding how these tools could be used, not to try to get your prospective clients on Twitter or blogs. If your prospective clients do not use Twitter or blogs, but do use email, then use email.

Steph Troeth: Comment about giving back. I spend about 10 hours a week to give back via volunteering. What I do when someone asks to pick my brains, the first thing I do is ask where are they going, what do they want to get out of it. Try to understand very early on where they are coming from, and where they want to go, then that helps understand what I and they can get out of it. Regarding Twitter, I keep my Twitter stream private, and that filters things, so if someone asks for help then I can spare ten minutes, then they will Twitter it and everyone will see.
Laura: If you invest ten minutes in helping people publicly online, that scales better, and is a more effective use of your time than going for a coffee. Regarding the meeting, shape the meeting, make it transparent that you are giving them an hour, so that there’s something clear there for them to appreciate. Work out what scales well for you.

Q: How would you build a community about Nato in the Balkans.
Find blogs for people writing about that, start a wiki to collate information, find people on Twitter, Jaiku etc. who are writing about it. Listening stage. Then start to blog, as prep for a quarterly newsletter. Lots of times people ask if CEOs should blog, usually say no, if they’re not already drawn to it then they maybe don’t have the DNA to be a blogger, so find someone who does and give them an hour a month with the CEO, but don’t force someone who doesn’t have the inclination to do it. The other big thing is to find a few case studies to show people. There’s a site called Qik,com, which lets you broadcast from your phone – friend was in Africa and came across Bob Geldof and used Qik to do a video with questions.

Technorati Tags: goingsolo

Going Solo, the conference for freelances that Stephanie Booth is putting on in Lausanne, Switzerland, is happening this coming Friday. The good news is that if you don’t have your ticket already, registration is still open, and if you make a last minute snap decision to come, you can pay on the door.

Lausanne isn’t a well-known conference town, so Steph has given us a bit of a hint of what’s in store for us down on the lake-front:

And for a taster of what you’ll get on the day, Alex Bellinger of SmallBizPod has done interviews with a number of the speakers (including me).
I’m getting very excited about Going Solo, and if you’re in two minds, I’d certainly recommend that you come along as I think it’s going to be a really fascinating – and very useful – day.