336 minutes of video
336 minutes of audio
102 slides
111 pages of transcript
*****
Freelance Business Systems: You, The Resource, Supported as a Human
Even though I have been self-employed for ten years now, I have to tell you, there are things about the HR operations of large, established companies that I not only miss—pick-me-up happy hours and excursions, holiday parties, ergonomic chair and table options, and someone tasked with thinking about the healthiness of the menu options on offer, to name a few.
In part, because I have worked for big organizations myself in the past, and in part because so many people in my circle of friends through my big-brand-employed husband, I’ve always had an eye on incorporating the most crucial and supportive HR practices in my own organization of one throughout my days as a freelance writer.
In this webinar, we talk about why HR people do what they do and how to apply it to a freelance setting to make sure that the most important resource in your freelance business—you—always has the support it needs to do its best work.
We will cover:
– What human resources is exactly and what are all the different things the human resources do?
– What different things that HR people do and how does that translate for us as freelancers?
Freelance Business Systems: Just Make it Legal
“Legal departments” are things that we tend to associate with big corporate entities that have in-house council and annoying folks who insist on seeing every tweet before it goes out (even though that defeats the entire purpose of Twitter!). But the legal considerations for your business cannot be ignored, and I’m not just talking about what kind of business you are or are not legally registered as.
There are countless situations that come up from freelance writers, from parsing rights to photos with a CVB or business that hosted you or knowing that the magazine you’ve sold a story to has also purchased the rights to any royalties if your story becomes a movie or book, and making decisions upfront and establishing standard practices for your business will help you know what to do when any of these situations arise and take them in stride.
Please note in appropriate legal fashion: I am not a legal professional, and the recommendations in these webinars are based on journalistic research, personal experience, and experiences of your peers. We absolutely recommend you consult an individual with the appropriate licensing or accreditation for your physical business location on all legal matters.
We will cover:
– The most important functions of a legal department… and how to consider them in your business
– Breaking down the big three legal roles
– Deep dive into contract language to watch out for
– Food for thought: Some on-going issues for freelancers to stay on top of
Freelance Business Systems: Your Technical Support Squad
As one-man or one-woman bands, freelancers suffer from two things that really affect you in the tech department: being the only one doing all the things, and having to be very judicious about where we spend our most precious resource, time.
When it comes to keeping your business operating as best it can in the tech department, that tends to mean that you’re either using sub-par equipment and resources in one area or another, or, if you just love the stuff, you spend way too much time fiddling with the latest apps and systems in a way that is more hobby than actually supporting your business.
In this webinar, we’ll walk through specific areas of your business that the right tech can help excel in ways you didn’t realize were possible, what you need to know about keeping yourself and your client’s data appropriately secure at home and on the road (don’t be scared if you’re not doing this now—we’ll cover it!), and how, most importantly, to implement systems to make sure that tech issues never slow your business down.
We will cover:
– Why IT might just be the most misunderstood business area
– What an IT department really does
– Focal points for getting your IT up to snuff
– Food for thought: Some on-going issues for freelancers to stay on top of
Freelance Business Systems: The Fun Stuff on Your List (Research & Development) R&D
Depending on your pre-travel-writing background, the term “research and development” may make you think of many things (I always think of pharma companies somehow), but I bet you would never think of it as something that relates to your travel writing. In this webinar, we look at how this crucial area of your business is (a) something you’re no doubt already doing, (b) how doing it in a non-systematic way is the source of many problems you run into as a freelancer, and (c) what we can learn from highly functioning R&D departments to make this area of your business something that thrives and brings you closer to your most important goals each quarter and year.
We will cover:
– What do I mean when I talk about “research and development” for travel writers?
– What does R&D generally mean in corporate content?
– The “divisions” of R&D for travel writers as food for thought on what to do… and what not to do
– Next steps for getting clarity on where you’re investing this portion of your time
Tying up our whole series on freelance business systems, we head to the top of the business totem pole with your role as the executive of your freelance firm. In this webinar, we will first examine the most fundamental roles of the traditional executive–and these may be the most surprising of everything you learn in this series. We’ll then look at how the owner or named partner in other types of one- or very-few-man/woman bands (lawyers, architects, interior designers, etc.) work to manage their practice as a combination doer and owner-manager and what we can learn from the growth of those businesses.
We will cover:
– GED vs MBA
– Breaking down governance, executive functions, and strategic direction
– Three landmark frameworks of executive function, strategic direction, and management
– Tying it all together
Bonus
Introduction to Business Systems for Freelance Travel Writers
In this call, the beginning of our new series on organizing your business like you’re actually running one, rather than the “figure it out as you go” approach so many freelancers use, we introduce two frameworks for conceptualizing yourself as a business owner and the various roles that you take on before we go into each “business department” individually in the series.
We will cover:
– What are we doing in this weird series?
– Two models to looking at the managing of one’s own business
– The departments we will explore and why