Freelancers can no longer be ignored as fringe workers, in-betweeners, and the occassional slacker seeking to hide his true unemployment. Freelancers now make up a significant portion of the creative economy, especially in Cities like New York where fashion, film, theatre, design, and music industries thrive outside the walls of conventional employment relationships.

In this episode, we hear from Alex Signh (@AutomaticYes), Co-Founder of Domino, an online community for freelancers, Matt Inglot (@MattInglot), host of the Freelance Transformation podcast, and Jaime Campbell (@TierOneServices), a CPA and business coach who has worked with freelancers throughout her career.

Together we examine some definitions, ailments, and mindsets shared by freelancers. We also drop a few action steps any freelancer can take to make the transition — or the next step — that much smoother.

"A Freelancer to me is essentially just an entrepreneur."

—Alex Singh

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"Calling yourself a freelancer is the greatest way not to get paid."

—Matt Inglot

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"20 clients is a lot of proposals to close."

—Matt Inglot

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Debbie Millman (@DebbieMillman) is a design and branding industry impresario. She will, at any given moment, be involved in a multitude of projects and roles across the profession. For nearly 20 years, she’s been the President of Sterling Brands, a design and brand strategy firm based in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Since 2005, she’s hosted Design Matters, one of the most successful radio shows (now podcasts) about design and creativity. She also founded and chairs the Master’s in Branding course at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and has authored numerous books.

In this episode, Debbie speaks about the structure and workflow of Sterling — now a corporate agency, how she stays energized across her many endeavors, and how she’s still working to overcome awkwardness in her life and career. We also get to hear the story of how Debbie and Prescott first met.

Design Matters is among the iTunes Best of 2015

“Common vocabulary does not always equate to common behavior.”

—Debbie Millman

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“The only people that really like brand design changes are brand designers.” (joking/not joking)

—Debbie Millman

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“Ambiguity is never seen positively.” (e.g., ambiguous emails)

—Debbie Millman

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“I don’t even know that I was a fully formed human being when I was 30.”

—Debbie Millman

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“Getting your first job out of college is like starting kindergarten all over.”

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellent, then, is not an act but a habit.”

–Aristotle

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“Multitasking is the enemy of focused creativity.”

—Debbie Millman

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“When the going gets tough, we go to Facebook.”

—Debbie Millman

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This episode is a rundown of resource I've been collecting and analysing for some time. The Busy Creator Podcast is far from the only place online to learn business skills and discuss productivity, so strap yourself in and listen to this collection of 27 online resources where creative pros can learn business skills.

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How should a creative professional go about building an audience for an online project or brand? What can we do to connect with likeminded people and potential partners? How can bring a killer app or perfect gift to a hungry audience? 

Like many others on the Internet, I don't have all the answers, but I know a few experts.

In this episode, we hear from Johanna (@GoodVibesJo) and Charles (@TheBrownVegan), the team behind Good Vibes Life, on the hard lessons learned in their first year of online brand-building. We also hear from Ben Kreuger (@BenWKreuger), of Cashflow Podcasting, on popular and proven tactics for audience growth. Finally, Kate Erickson (@KateLErickson) of Entrepreneur on Fire and Kate's Take shares the Top 7 Strategies: How to Grow a Podcast Audience. 

When all's said and done, there are a few genuinely proven routes to take to building an audience, but each takes consistency, energy, and time. Lots of time. Learn what they are in today's conversation.

"The point of social media is not just to gain followers."

—Johanna Perez-Fox

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"75% of the classroom has the same question, but no one is brave enough to ask."

—Charles Penn

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"The smallest thing you can do in the world is a single tap on a digital screen."

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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"In order to have an audience of any kind, there has to be a medium of communication."

—Ben Krueger

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Kitty Chan (@IMKittyChan) and Alice Chan (@AliceChan319) are twin sisters and co-workers at Procurify, an online software company based in Richmond, BC, Canada. The duo work together within the design team at Procurify, and have originated many of the company's creative workflows and protocols, grown the product and marketing offerings from the ground up, and installed a healthy creative culture.

In this conversation, we discuss how the sisters came to work together at Procurify, some of the early creative challenges faced by a small software company, and what sort of workflows and rituals you can use in your own company to help create order and harmony.

Procurify is an online tool to aide companies in their purchasing and procurement. Check them out at Procurify.com

"We know how we both work. It's very easy to communicate."

—Alice Chan

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"Don't bake a giant cake; you might not like the flavour. Bake a cupcake first and taste it."

—Alice Chan

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"Fail fast but also learn fast."

—Alice Chan

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"Our design team is in the center of everything."

—Kitty Chan

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"Boss is a four-letter word."

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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"[Our office] feels like a community center sometimes."

—Kitty Chan

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Leave a comment below to participate in the conversation.

Betsy Helmuth (@BetsyHelmuth) is an interior designer & decorator in New York City. Her company, Affordable Interior Design, offers, well, affordable interior design. Over the years, she's designed rooms in over 1,000 apartments, as well as many offices and home offices.

In this conversation, we discuss some simple steps that we creative pros can take to improve our workspaces — both while renting an office and in fixing up our home office. We cover lighting, colour, shelving, storage, and other little "hacks" for setting up shop and enjoying a happy, productive, creative work-day.

Show Notes & Links

"It's more expensive to move than to pay a little bit more each month."

—Betsy Helmuth

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"A rented space needs to have some home-office flavor."

—Betsy Helmuth

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Tools

Techniques

Habits

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This bonus show is dedicated to Ethan Frederick Greene, my friend and a talented musician, who passed away September 13, 2015. Featured are a selection of Ethan’s composition work across multiple genres included electronica, chamber music, opera, ambient, and other bits that defy category.

For more about Ethan, please visit his site, EthanGreene.org

Ethan Greene on SoundCloud

Dan Fields (@danthebeast) is a Vice President of Operations at Aarra, an interactive management firm based in New York and Chicago. Once a humble Flash developer, Dan has moved into a sales and new business role, building relationships with large agencies and small shops alike.

Our conversations discusses the need for sales and relationships in creative businesses, how Dan made the transition to new biz, and some of the challenges facing the ever-changing advertising industry.

Catch up with Dan on his personal site Danfields.com or via his podcast, Save It For The Show.

“You have to have the work in your portfolio.”

—Dan Fields

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“My work ethic was high enough that I could fake being a decent designer.”

—Dan Fields

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“You can be on the phone all day, up to date on your email, or you can actually get things done.”

—Dan Fields

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“At some point advertising forgot that it’s supposed to sell something, not just win awards.”

—Dan Fields

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“Advertising is weaponized media.”

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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“Every time you do something creative, you’re buying a lottery ticket.”

—Dan Fields

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Mignon Fogarty (@MignonFogarty) is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips, the multi-faceted publishing website that produces dozens of topic-specific podcasts based on several characters, the most famous of which is Grammar Girl.

Since creating the Grammar Girl Podcast, Mignon has authored 7 books, collected a host of podcasting awards, and recently assumed the Donald W. Reynolds Chair in Media Entrepreneurship at the University of Nevada Reno.

Our conversation follows Mignon's origins in online business, how she leveraged her early podcast success and existing personal relationships to create a broader network, and how she still prefers to do certain production elements herself.

"There's a lot of power in networks"

—Mignon Fogarty

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"People write in different ways for different media."

—Mignon Fogarty

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"What texting is, despite the fact that it involves the brute mechanics of something that we call writing, is fingered speech."

—John McWhorter

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"The Internet is [still] mostly a written medium."

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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Professor Fogarty Mignon teaches Media Entrepreneurship & Social Journalism 

"Applesaucing", Prescott's term for re-purposing and re-publishing your content

How Mignon organises and plans a book. Very cool[av_video src='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnSIMqtsgLY' format='16-9' width='16' height='9']

Mignon has written 7 books in 6 years — in your face, Todd Henry!

Fellini

Information Diets

When recording from her home, Mignon uses a walk-in closet with a snowball mic

 Mignon Fogarty on Twitter

 Mignon Fogarty on Instagram

 Mignon Fogarty on Google+

 Grammar Girl on Twitter

 Grammar Girl on Facebook

 Grammar Girl on SoundCloud

Mignon Fogarty tells her story to Leo Laporte on Triangulation, episode 117[av_video src='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA8ZH_cdl9M' format='16-9' width='16' height='9']

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Ben Elijah (@inkandben) is a consultant in the productivity sector and author of the book The Productivity Habits. In this conversation, we dig into the productivity sector as a whole, and discuss his origins as an author and as a not-very-productive person.

The Productivity Habits, by Ben Elijah

This episode is oddly self-referential, as we, two productivity nerds, talk about how bad we are with our own habits, and about how we continually struggle to stay productive — at least in our own eyes. Ben writes and speaks about the topic, which is an ongoing struggle for all of us. You’ll learn some of Ben’s tested habits and techniques you can use to get started down the road toward better effectiveness.

Catch up with Ben via his site, InkAndBen.com

“Really creative people care about things … but do they deploy passion the right way?”

—Ben Elijah

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“Education is serial; in work, things come in parallel”

—Ben Elijah

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“Who am I going to disappoint today?”

—Merlin Mann

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“There isn’t anybody talking about this that isn’t also a student”

—Ben Elijah

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“It takes a certain amount of self-awareness just to begin”

—Prescott Perez-Fox

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“The world that the human brain has created is very ill-suited to the human brain.”

—Ben Elijah

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“Your brain is for having ideas, not for holding them”

—David Allen

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“For me to become even moderatel effective has taken nearly 10 years of blood, sweat, tears, and constant failure.”

—Ben Elijah

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“A context is a function of space, time, and thought.”

—Ben Elijah

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“Switching between tasks has overhead”

—Ben Elijah

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