One of the joys of freelance work is the low overhead of working on your own. No full-time accountants to pay, no administrative staff to manage. However, for every successful freelancer (that’s you, right?), there comes a time when the work of being your own accountant, marketing department, and administrative assistant starts to dilute your hourly rate.

Friction Losses: Going Up in Unbillable Smoke

The rule of thumb that says a freelancer will be able to bill for half of the hours they work is based, at least in part, on the fact that most freelancers are their own accountant, marketing department, and administrative assistant. 50% of the hours a typical freelancer works go up in unbillable smoke because of these necessary administrative functions. I call these Friction Losses, because they can be reduced, but never completely eliminated.

You can reduce Friction Losses with better technology and better processes. Everyone has a different definition of better, but in general I mean:

• Easier to use
• Automates repetitive tasks
• Leverages integration

That’s pretty abstract stuff, but stay tuned because in the next few blog posts here we’ll take you through how Ofuz helps freelancers reduce Friction Losses.

Opportunity Losses: Where Your Next Meal is Coming From

Business growth is a tricky thing. For anyone who bills on an hourly basis, being busy brings in more money. But, what if you’re so busy doing your thing that you don’t have time to develop new business opportunities and leads? That’s an Opportunity Loss.

A lot of my freelancing friends have a single client. The rest of us are juggling multiple clients. The biggest Opportunity Loss is going from being very busy doing your thing to suddenly being idle because you were too busy to develop new clients and leads. No matter how many clients you have, if you are occupied working on projects, sending out invoices, and making sure all of those little tasks are checked off your to do list, when are you going to find the time to go get the next job? Again, better tools can help.

Freelancers can reduce Opportunity Losses by better leveraging integration. For example, every existing and past client is a potential bridge to new clients. Ofuz offers unified contact management and project management that helps you use that list of names locked up in your email software to help you collaborate and reach out to existing and potential clients better.

Clean Your Desk With Ofuz: Invoice, Tasks, and Contacts in One Place

Every freelancer with a growing business reaches the tipping point: the point where they ask the question, “Should I hire help with this so I can focus on doing my thing?” The point where things might start to drop between the cracks and where invoicing using those Word or Excel templates is starting to look bush league. The point where managing your collaboration with a bunch of Google Docs files isn’t cutting it anymore.

Ofuz can help you navigate the tipping point more easily and efficiently. Ofuz brings together the bulk of your freelance management tasks into a unified interface. With contact management, task tracking, collaboration, and easy invoicing, Ofuz helps freelancers do their thing more easily. Sign up for an account today.

In the next few blog posts, we’ll show how specific Ofuz features help freelancers reduce Friction and Opportunity Losses. Stay tuned!

This entry was posted on Friday, April 2nd, 2010 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Freelancer, Small business tools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.