Freelance Work Strategies for Video and Motion Graphics Creators

Learn the strategies, tools, technologies, and skills you need to survive and thrive as a self-employed creative video professional.

Introduction

• Welcome
• How to use the exercise files

1. Getting Started

• Is freelance life for you?
• Defining your personal mission statement
• Setting up your physical work space, your gear, and your virtual infrastructure

2. Your Brand Identity

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

3. Business Essentials

• Legal options for your business
• Best practices: Accounting, bookkeeping, and taxes
• Paying yourself
• Insurance: What types and why you need them
• Contracts
• Schedules and budgets

4. Growing Your Business

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

5. Managing Relationships

• Managing expectations for project success
• Managing up: The client-freelancer video partnership
• Working within large organizations
• Working with other freelancers and small businesses
• Strategies for challenging clients and projects

6. Setting and Getting Your Rate

• Three pricing models
• Getting paid

7. Your Career, Your Life

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

Conclusion

• Wrap up and resources