I must admit, I’m picky when it comes to joining social networks.  It seems like new networks are popping up weekly and my inbox contains invitations to join them almost as frequently. Generally, I’m not interested in the overhead required in managing a profile on yet another site, so more often than not: I pass.  The one social network I couldn’t pass on though, is LinkedIn.

It was a couple of years ago that I first joined LinkedIn and it’s been good to me. For those of you unaware, LinkedIn is a social network focusing on work and career with a reported membership of 25 million people strong.  Think of it as a place where you can build social network which revolves around your professional life. Now, LinkedIn is great for worker bees of all kinds but of particular value for us freelancers. Here’s why:

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Let me set the scene here.  About five years ago I was in London, living in Wembley and working from home (in my undies as usual) and I picked up new client on Elance.  It was a very small project for less than a couple hundred bucks.  The client was in the US and looking for some quick banners to meet a late deadline.  I low balled my bid knowing I could turn it around fast and I needed the cash for some bills.  One thing lead to another and I got the gig.

Photo by Powerdruns.

Smooth out the ups and downs of freelancing by selling your time in advance.

I completed this little project which turned out to be the catalyst for a great working relationship and over the next five years, this client would spend over a $100k with me, all from a small two hundred dollar project.

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Clients are clients and they will change their minds. As a remote freelancer, I always wondered what the best way would be to handle getting approval from clients.  I mean, getting our clients to sign off at certain stages of a project is very important in moving the project towards completion and protecting ourselves from revision hell.

Photo by tambako.

"Sure I'll change the size of that logo for the seventh time ... right after I eat your face!"

So how does a guy like me (who works from home mostly in his underpants) get approval from a client? For starters, lets make it clear that I hate fax machines with a passion.  “That” fax machine scene from Office Space is so spot on (yeah, you know what I’m on about).  Snail mail is just too freakin’ slow and not even on the radar as an option.  So in order to protect myself and my client and keep things moving towards completion,  I insist clients sign off at key milestones of their project using a simple and fast technique via email called a Production Notice.

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