206 minutes of video
206 minutes of audio
71 slides
66 pages of transcript
*****
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
Freelance Business Systems: Finance Fun
In this webinar, we’ll start our journey into the numbers that really make your freelance business tick (as in, make the money that pays the bills flow into your bank account so you can function as a human with a room over her head and food in her belly) with the bigger picture. Finance and accounting are widely confusing or thought to be one and the same among those who don’t hold these roles, and accounting is already the bane of many freelancer’s “admin” to-do lists. So this week, we’re going to start with finance, which is more about planning to make sure money is always coming your way, something you’ll find puts a smile on your face every time you do it once you get the hang of it.
We will cover:
– The serious numbers behind why numbers matter
– Works that you might abhor, but need to deeply understand and let motivate your businesses
– Deep dive into cash, how to watch it flow, and tips for maintaining it
Freelance Business Systems: Accounting Minus Suck
Freelance accounting commonly takes the form of “why haven’t I been paid for this story yet?!?! I sent the invoice this week!” but invoicing is actually a very small piece of the pie. On the heels of tax season, we’ll take this hour to go through, line by line, what numbers you should be tracking, how, where, and why, so that the numeric side of your freelance life no longer feels scary, and everything has a place that feels just right and brings you joy, Marie Kondo-style.
We will cover:
– How does accounting fit into our larger goals for this series?
– What is accounting and what’s different from finance
– The core parts of accounting that you’re already doing (whether you like it or not)
– Accounting systems that already exist and how to create your own (that work)
Freelance Business Systems: Perfect Purchasing
When you don’t know what your income is going to be each month, it’s automatically harder to budget (not just for life, but for your business!). The unfortunate follow up of that is that it’s also harder to make clear, informed, deliberate decisions about what to purchase why and when, which can often lead to snap decisions or overspending. But those are just the surface-level considerations in creating a plan for how to purchase purchases related to your business—which, in case you’re not thinking of it that way, also includes your travel spending. In this webinar, we pull a page from the corporate playbook and look at strategies that allow you to make the most of each dollar.
We will cover:
– What does corporate purchasing really consist of? (a.k.a. how do companies justify whole departments for this?!)
– What purchasing means and looks like for freelance travel writers
– Three main ways to streamline your purchasing
– Tactics to start today to improve your purchasing
