Working as an independent contractor has become a popular alternative to the traditional 9 to 5 job.
Prior to the recent wave of cloud-based technology, it wasn’t much of a viable option. But now people located all around the globe can collaborate using online tools like web-conferencing, mobile apps, and document sharing — just as if they were working together in the same office.
Independent contracting gives people with specialized skills the opportunity to work remotely, often during the hours that suit them best. It allows people to work on multiple projects for different companies at the same time — and be selective in what work they take on.
Independent contractors often say they enjoy more flexibility than they did working a regular job.
What is an independent contractor?
In general, an independent contractor is hired by a business to work on a temporary project. When their work is complete, so is their stint with the business, unless of course they agree to take on a new project.
It’s important to note that both businesses and the government view contractors differently than regular employees. Contractors own their business, which means they’re responsible for providing their own benefits — and income tax will not be withheld from their pay.
If you’re considering working as an independent contractor, you’ll definitely need to set money aside for taxes and you should probably do the same for health insurance and retirement.
The benefits of being an independent contractor
Taxes and benefits aside, independent contracting offers many advantages. Here are a few benefits:
- You’re the boss — Independent contractors are self-employed. They get to choose who they work with, how often, and what their rate is.
- Work-life balance — Most contractors work remotely. This means they’re free of commuting, unnecessary meetings, and workplace politics that commonly cause work-related stress.
- More money — Some contractors earn more than they did in a full-time role, since they’re able to shop their skills around to different companies.
How to make it work
Being an independent contractor clearly has plenty of appeal. But there is a lot of uncertainty, too. A consistent paycheck isn’t guaranteed, so maintaining a consistent flow of work is a must. If you’re considering giving it a try, here are a few tips that can set you up for success:
- Plan what you’ll earn — You should already have some idea what your skills are worth, but a site like Upwork (formerly oDesk/Elance) can give you a more specific idea about the freelance market.
- Get your business set up — Determine your legal structure, register with your state, and consider getting business insurance.
- Look for work everywhere — Scour all the freelance websites, use social media, and hand out business cards to everyone you know. You never know where a big job could come from.
- Use cloud technology to help you — Once you’re taking on projects, cloud tools like online document storage, accounting software, and a project management system can make your life easier.
Working as an independent contractor could be your ticket to a better work-life balance and even higher income. Check out Xero’s small business guide to learn more.
About the author: Dave Anderson is an Outreach Writer for Xero accounting software. He lives in San Francisco and enjoys writing about technology, entrepreneurship, marketing, and a variety of other topics.
How do you check your email?
If you’re like most people, it’s often on a much smaller screen than the one you were using just a few years ago.
Today, more than 65 percent of all emails are opened on a mobile device.
When it comes to your email marketing, you need to make sure your messages look great no matter what size screen your audience is using. You also need to think about how people are reading and interacting with your emails in today’s increasingly mobile world.
The first step is to create a compelling message that grabs your audience’s attention and gets them to click to open.
If you look at your own mobile inbox, you’ll notice three key elements of every message:
- From Name: Lets people know who the message is coming from
- Subject Line: Lets people know what the email is about and why they should open
- Preheader: Gives people a sample of the content in the email
Once someone clicks to open your message, you’ll only have a few seconds to keep their attention and get them to take action.
Hopefully your subject line and preheader provided a hint of what your subscribers can expect to see when opening your email.
Now that they’ve opened your email and are ready to read, there are a few best practices you need to keep in mind:
1. Positioning
You want the message of your email to be as focused as possible. Ideally, you’ll have one primary piece of information you want to get across to your audience and no more than 2-3 secondary messages.
Think about the goal of your email. If you could get one piece of information across to your audience, what would it be?
Make sure that’s the first thing people see when opening by positioning it at the top of your email.
Tip: An easy way to make your emails more mobile-friendly is to use a single-column template. This will make it easy for people to see all of your information without having to click to zoom in.
2. Format
People consume information differently on a smaller screen. One of the biggest differences is how quickly they can to scroll through and scan information.
Format your email content for people who like to scan. Start with a short header message that sets up the content people are about to read.
The copy that follows should be clear and concise.
Replace lengthy paragraphs with quick sentences that let people know what you’re doing, why it’s important to them, and what action you’d like them to take.
Avoid lengthy paragraphs that can slow down the reader and distract them from giving your content the attention it needs.
3. Images and branding
Include an eye-catching image that helps the reader connect with the message you’re sending out.
If your nonprofit is asking for donations for an upcoming project, include an image that shows how those funds will be used.
Retail businesses can choose an image that showcases the products you’re promoting.
And if you’re not selling a product or service but just want to share a piece of helpful information, use an image that relates to the education you’re sharing and makes people interested in reading more.
Keep in mind that on many mobile devices, images won’t display automatically and some will turn off displaying images by default. This is why it’s important to not overload your email with too many images and to always make sure you have text to provide the details people need.
4. Strong call-to-action
Now that you’ve set your message up to work well on mobile, the last step is to make sure your readers clearly understand the action you want them to take.
In many cases, the next step will happen offline. If you want people to visit your store, show up to an event, or call to make a reservation or place an order — it’s important to clearly state what you want them to do and give them the information they need to take action.
If the next action is online — to visit your website, register for an event, or shop online — then you’ll want to include a link that’s visible and easy-to-click on any size screen.
Remember that on mobile, your readers need to be able to use their finger to click or scroll. Avoid stacking multiple links or putting different links too close together. Whenever possible, add a button that’s easy to click from a phone.
Don’t wait to get started.
Hopefully you’re already following some of these mobile best practices when you sit down to design your email newsletters and announcements.
If there are any new tips you want to try out, you can log in to your Constant Contact account and try them for yourself right now.
With a few simple tweaks, you’ll be able to offer a better experience to your entire email audience, which can lead to more opens and incoming business.
Have you ever listened to the words customers use to describe your business?
Are the words they choose similar to the ones you use on a regular basis? Are there any differences that stand out?
What about online?
Do you know which terms people are using when searching for products and services like the ones you offer? Are you familiar with the ways people talk about your business on social media?
Understanding the terms people associate with your business is a process that all businesses and organizations can benefit from.
This will help you position your business more effectively so that you’re able to get found by new customers who are searching online. It will also help you create marketing messages that resonate with the people you want to reach.
Let’s get started!
Step 1: Identify your audience
The first step in this process is to take inventory of your company’s main keywords. Keywords are the terms that you will use to describe your business, your product or service, and your mission. These terms may also help differentiate you from your competitors.
If you get stuck, an online social media search tool, Topsy, can help you figure out how popular a keyword is online. You can also see exactly who has been talking about that topic and what other businesses are participating in those discussions.
For instance, if you are the owner of a hair salon, you may choose to search the term “sulfate-free,” which is a trending topic in the beauty world. For those of you who are in the beginning stages of search and email marketing keyword research, the most useful pieces of information are the number of times the term has been used and who has been using it.
In this case, you will be able to see other organizations and industry professionals who have a vested interest in that discussion. From there, you can make sure your brand’s messaging echoes those conversations. If you find there isn’t much chatter around a particular keyword, you may want to reconsider using it to describe your business.
Step 2: Give them what they are looking for
Essentially, this step is to ensure that your brand’s message is a reflection of your prospect’s wants and needs. Using Google Ads, you can quickly evaluate whether the keywords you identified in the previous phase of this activity are, in fact, the best fit.
This exercise can also help you refine those terms that will have the highest search engine ranking.
For instance, your salon’s slogan mentions a ‘blow bar’ (32,830 monthly searches) but the term ‘dry bar’ ranks significantly higher (50,350 monthly searches). It may be time to revise your branding.
Once you have confirmed your keywords, you can confidently use them throughout your brand messaging including email marketing, advertising, blog and other sales collateral. Remember to maintain consistency among all these assets, which is essential for strong brand recognition.
It is important to remain focused on your mission, particularly during this step, to ensure that you are staying true to the value your business brings to your customers.
Step 3: Speak their language
At this point, you’ve got a core list of keywords that describe your business and will ultimately contribute to a stronger identity online. Once you’re comfortable with those and have incorporated them into the nooks and crannies of your business, keep the rest of your language simple.
Resist the urge you may have to overcomplicate things to make your company seem more important. Avoid technical language at the risk of confusing and ultimately scaring off potential customers.
This is true for your email newsletters, website landing pages and social media channels. In an effort to represent your brand in the clearest manner, you must be selective about the language you are using and make sure to reinforce it throughout all the various channels of communication.
It’s important to note that this entire activity should be revisited from time to time to ensure that your brand remains current and that you are responding to the changing needs of your customers. Market trends are evolving and it’s important not to let your brand be outshined by the competition simply because of an outdated approach.
Now what?
Get started by identifying your audience. Who are they? What are they interested in? How can you help them become more successful?
Once you know who you want to reach, test this three-step process out for yourself.
Ask people what’s different about shopping at a local business versus a large chain, and they’ll probably tell you something like: “The owner greets me by name,” “They know everything about the products they sell,” or “They offer such unique products.”
Now, think about how often you hear people describe a big chain like that — probably not very often.
It’s the experience you provide that just can’t scale up. You’re intimately knowledgeable about the products and services you offer and uniquely positioned to compete based on the great experiences you provide.
As luck would have it, experiences are also what people remember and like to tell others about. Those customers make up the “word” in word-of-mouth.
Small Businesses Recognize Its Potential
Alignable surveyed over 1,400 local business owners to ask about the best way to acquire new customers. The results confirm the power of word-of-mouth marketing as the top response — chosen by business owners at a rate 3X higher than the closest alternative.
It’s clear small business owners recognize word-of-mouth as the most effective way to acquire new customers.
It’s Closer Than You Think
Research shows that roughly 80 percent of local business customers come from a 5-mile radius around your business. That means your “word” does not need to travel far, but the more “mouths” you have in the area that know about you the greater the likelihood that your best next customer will run into one of them.
That was the case for Rachael Wood of Bare Bones BARKtique dog bakery in Aurora, CO. After joining Alignable, she was able to connect with other businesses in her local community, and establish relationships that led to increased word-of-mouth and referrals.
Rachael reached out to let us know she had “connected with several potential business partners as well as customers in [her] direct industry.”
While you may already be thinking about generating word-of-mouth through your customer base, don’t overlook the importance of tapping into the collective wisdom of other business owners and establishing partnerships.
Want to learn more?
If you want to learn more about how you can get more word-of-mouth for your business, download Alignable’s Word-of-Mouth eBook.
Small business owners understand better than anyone how important it is to be able to adapt to change.
This is true for all industries, but is especially true for a business like Austin-based publishing company, Octane Press.
“I’ve been involved in the book publishing industry for a long time, and have experienced the tremendous change that has taken place firsthand,” explains Lee Klancher, founder of Octane Press. “Since starting my company in 2010, our focus has been on editorial quality. That’s really been a key to our success.”
Lee explains that one of the areas where change has taken place is in the way publishers reach out and build relationships with their different audiences.
“We wanted to create a model that would allow us to communicate with our direct audience, but also have an efficient way to notify our vendors when we have new books coming out,” Lee explains. “Email marketing has been tremendously effective for both.”
Since getting started with email marketing, Lee and his staff have learned how to use email marketing to connect with loyal customers and grow the business relationships that are critical to their success.
Here’s a closer look at how they did it:
1. Understand your audience
One of the biggest benefits of using email marketing to promote your business is that you’re able to target your messages to different audiences on your email list.
Using Constant Contact, Lee is able to create mailing for his two major audiences — readers and vendors — and even segment his audience even further based on past purchasing behavior.
“When people like a product and are interested in the information you send out, they are much more receptive to your message,” Lee explains. “We’re really thoughtful about how we organize our lists and make sure we use all the information we have available.”
In addition to creating separate email lists on his own, Lee also uses Constant Contact’s online sign-up forms to give new subscribers the option to choose the type of information they want to receive.
2. Email with purpose
Knowing what his audience is interested in gives Lee the ability to make smarter decisions about the emails he sends out.
Each email is created with a specific audience in mind and also has a measurable goal that Lee expects to achieve.
“We have a lot of respect for our audience and we’re careful not to inundate them with unwanted information,” Lee explains. “When we’re reaching out to vendors, our goal is to just let them know that we have a book in stock and let them know how to order it.”
After developing the copy for their vendor emails, Lee and his staff tweak the message to reach out to loyal readers with updated information about how they can place orders on their own.
3. Be consistent
With so much going on, Lee and his staff work hard to find a balance that lets them keep their audiences up-to-date without flooding their inbox with too much information.
One of the ways they find that balance is by creating a mailing schedule that coincides with their publishing dates.
Sticking to that schedule helps Octane Press stay organized, and also has a meaningful impact on how the company builds relationships.
“If you don’t have a plan for reaching out to vendors on a regular basis, it’s easy to let some people fall through the cracks,” Lee explains. “You want to make sure you’re maintaining relationships with both your core vendors and any of the smaller ones you may be working with.”
4. Pay attention
When you’re speaking to different audiences and are focused on achieving a number of different goals, it’s important to give yourself the time to track your results.
This will allow you to see what’s working well, and can also help you identify areas for improvement.
“For us, the first thing we look at is our open rates. We set really high goals for ourselves and have been lucky to see these numbers over 40 percent on a regular basis,” Lee explains. “And of course, we’re looking at sales and keeping track of how people are responding.”
By paying attention to what’s working, Lee and his staff have been able to develop an email marketing strategy that results in increased sales and new business opportunities each time they hit send.
Try it for yourself.
Small businesses have never had more opportunities to connect with the people who matter most to your business. And no tool offers a better return from your investment than email marketing.
If you think your business could benefit from using email like Octane Press, you can try it today for free.
Visit our Email Marketing for Publishing page for more content ideas, tips, and success stories!