Freelance Work Strategies for Video and Motion Graphics Creators

Course details

To be a successful creative freelancer, you need to mesh your artistic abilities with managing a small business. In this course, Amy DeLouise helps creative video professionals learn the strategies, tools, technologies, and skills they need to survive and thrive in a gig economy. After helping you determine if the freelance life would be right for you, Amy explains how to define your brand identity. She then dives into several essential business concepts and shares marketing, sales, and networking techniques for growing your freelance business. Plus, learn how to manage relationships with clients, set your rate, ensure that you get paid, and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Learning objectives
Starting your video freelance career
Developing your brand as a video professional
Setting rates and getting paid
Business best practices
Managing your clients
Work-life balance and career transitions

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome
02 - How to use the exercise files

1. Getting Started

03 - Is freelance life for you
04 - Defining your personal mission statement
05 - Setting up your physical work space, your gear, and your virtual infrastructure

2. Your Brand Identity

06 - Honing your elevator pitch
07 - Defining your market - Broad vs. deep
08 - What clients need vs. what they say they need (hard skills vs. soft skills)
09 - Exercise 1 - Develop your elevator pitch
10 - Brand essentials - Website, resume, demo reel
11 - Leveraging social media
12 - Rebranding to achieve new goals and jobs
13 - Exercise 2 - SWOT analysis

3. Business Essentials

14 - Legal options for your business
15 - Best practices - Accounting, bookkeeping, and taxes
16 - Paying yourself
17 - Insurance - What types and why you need them
18 - Contracts
19 - Schedules and budgets

4. Growing Your Business

20 - What you need to know about marketing vs. sales
21 - Creating a big-picture strategy and long-term goals
22 - Networking dos and don'ts
23 - Teaming up for bigger projects

5. Managing Relationships

24 - Managing expectations for project success
25 - Managing up - The client-freelancer video partnership
26 - Working within large organizations
27 - Working with other freelancers and small businesses
28 - Strategies for challenging clients and projects

6. Setting and Getting Your Rate

29 - Three pricing models
30 - Getting paid

7. Your Career, Your Life

31 - Strategies for achieving work-life balance as a video freelancer
32 - Exercise 3 - Setting goals
33 - Managing career transitions and positioning yourself for new jobs

Conclusion

34 - Wrap up and resources