One afternoon you are hanging out with your family. Music is playing in the background and you are all enjoying yourselves. When a Taylor Swift song comes on your adorable daughter starts dancing and singing along. It’s just all too cute so you whip out your phone, take a short video of it, and post […]
Frank the Freelancer
Are you paid by your clients for your specialized skills? Then this post collection will help do it on the legal up and up!
Are you making this mistake when paying your employees?
No matter how much you wished it were different, you only have 24 hours in a day. And you are juggling at least ten different roles in those 24 hours. You’ve got to: deliver your product/service keep your customers happy find new customers do the bookkeeping feed yourself write your content answer all the never-ending […]
How to get permission to use copyrighted material
Grab the “Can I use your copyrighted materials?” email template So you can quickly and easily ask permission to use someone else’s work. Your privacy is important to us. Learn how we protect it here. They told us to do a Google Search and download and print any pictures we wanted to use. And that […]
Learning the Ropes: Rachel Mae Smith
I can’t believe that Rachel Mae Smith of The Crafted Life and I only met in person late this summer. We met when I had the chance to take a joint workshop from her and Lisa Anderson Shaffer. I’ve been following Rachel’s blog for ages and am a big fan of her work. And proof […]
Do you know the answer to these 8 questions?
When I’m wearing my attorney hat, I see the nitty gritty ins and outs of lots of creative businesses. I hear successes, struggles, fears, and triumphs. I know about exciting things before you can share the news on social media. But also hear your frustrations when things go wrong. I’m the keeper of many secrets […]
Learning the Ropes: Brigitte Theriault
When I came up with this series, I knew that I wanted Brigitte Theriault to participate. Brigitte is a 10-year person chef veteran, but she struggles with an issue familiar to many creative service providers: the contract. For many creatives, presenting and negotiating a contract is a roller coaster of emotions. And I knew that […]
How to smoothly teach your clients about copyright
You are super proud of the work you did for a new design client. A couple months after you wrap up, you pop over to their website. You have a new project in the pipeline and so you want to take screenshots of your work in action for your portfolio. When you land on their […]
Are you breaking promises? Stop by creating a privacy policy
I can guess what your reaction will be when I start talking about the need for a privacy policy on your website. It’s usually feigned attention and eye rolling. In fact, when I ask people point-blank why they don’t have one, I usually hear the exact same answer: I don’t need one. This is wrong. You […]
The one change you need to make to your website terms of use
One of the keys to keeping your website visitors happy is to establish rules. These rules tell them what’s okay and what they can expect. You’d be right if you guessed that these rules go by the legal name of “terms of service” or “terms of use.” So you do the hard work, you brainstorm, […]
How to have happier clients: create policies
I love opening up my email to something like this: Kiff: I was really scared and nervous when I reached out to you. I thought that working together wasn’t going to be fun. Honestly, I was dreading it so much that reaching out to you sat on my to-do list for months. You’ve been so […]
How to build trust with team members: destroy test projects
I’m in the process of finding a website developer to work on some exciting new projects. And I’ve got a really solid lead that I’m thinking is the right person. Last Friday I was having coffee with a friend and telling her about the project, process, and status. I told her that I had narrowed […]
The secret to happy clients: sharing insider information
Last week when I was wearing my founding partner of a law firm hat, I had a conversation with a potential client. During that session I learned more about her business, we both agreed that she needed help and that working together seemed like a natural fit. Once we agreed to work together, I started […]