My Top 5 Freelancer / Solopreneur Hacks

How to charge more, be in when you’re out and get paid (roughly) on time.

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

This one is for all you enterprising freelance/self-employed solopreneurs out there, who have recently fled the employment nest or have just started their own venture.

I have a great affinity with the self-employed, having been amongst their ranks for about 20+ years, so I’d like to think I’ve picked up a few tricks along the way.

If you’ve just started your new business and are really pushed for time (which you probably are) head straight for No.5.

If you take just one element from this, make it that one!

Here are my Top 5 hacks to bossing it as a Solopreneur.

1. It’s all in a name

Call yourself something that sounds like there’s more than one of you… because one day there may well be, and it means you can charge agency rates from the start.

Instead of going for Kate Darracott Design, I called ‘myself’ Artwork Agency, if everyone knows it’s just you, they assume you are just going to charge freelance rates.

Remember, you can always reduce your price to ‘mates rates’ if you want to, for a particular client. Especially at the beginning, when you are desperate for any kind of work, but it’s difficult to go up once your rates are established.

You will also need to start using the royal ‘we’, rather than ‘I’ in correspondence, but you’d be surprised how quickly that becomes second nature.

I.e. We should be able to get a quote over to you for early next week.

Fun fact: In the UK you can operate as a Sole Trader like this under your own name for tax purposes, no need to register a company or register for VAT from the start. 

If you are really good at what you do (which presumably was the basis for you leaving your old job), you will eventually get to the point where you have more work than you can handle.

Then as you grow, you can utilise other freelancers, it’s all nice and consistent for your clients (as you’ll all be working under the umbrella Agency name), and you’ve already built-in that all-important margin to pay them, whilst charging your clients the same as you always have.

2. Use an answering service

As a single mum during my solopreneur days, there were definitely times when I needed to be out and ‘in’ at the same time. Enter stage left moneypenny.com¹, who I used to answer the phone for me, rather than a recorded voicemail. 

It’s amazing how good they are, once briefed, and you just switch your status around via the App, so you can either get them to take a message and say you are in a meeting (or out of the office today, whatever you fancy), or put callers directly through to your mobile.

This meant I didn’t need to stress while on the school run or in a meeting, as there was always someone ‘holding the fort’.

I also used to use it when I was expecting a new or important client to call, just so they’d talk to Moneypenny first and then be transferred through to me. It makes a great first impression for your little ‘company’.

They can also run your LiveChat for you on your website which is a great place to collect new leads, without you being interrupted by it.

3. Set-up additional email aliases or email accounts

If you have a website and your own domain name, I strongly advise setting up a few extra email addresses such as:

accounts@yourdomain.com

help@yourdomain.com

hello@yourdomain.com

They can either be just free of charge as an alias, or for a few quid extra you can set them up as proper accounts so you can send email from them too, not just receive.

This adds to the impression that your company is bigger than it actually is, and also helps you organise enquiries and accounts emails into neat folders.

Who doesn’t love a super efficient filing system!

4. Invent people

I borrowed this tip from my Mum’s old company who used to use the name Liz Bennet for their Customer Services contact.

There was no actual Liz Bennet (you may recognise her from Pride & Prejudice), Mum and her colleagues used to take it in turns doing Customer Services once a week.

Whoever was in the hot seat that day, would be Liz, which meant the customer had continuity, and the burden of CS was easily shared.

Another great use case for this is to invent an accounts contact, so you don’t tarnish the lovely working relationship you’ve built up with the client, when it comes to chasing payment.

I would go for a slightly old-fashioned name like Nicola or Susan, we used to use Brenda, to give that ‘person' extra gravitas.

This enables ‘Brenda’ to get quite stern via email when chasing payment, without harming your own friendly ‘would do anything for the client’ reputation.

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

5. Getting paid (roughly) on time

The worse thing about being freelance, rather than employed, is having to wait for payment, and horror of horrors, if they are late, you then have to chase that payment… or bury your head in the sand until you can no longer avoid the issue.

If you don’t keep on top of the payment situation, Companies will take the piss and withhold payment, and in my experience the bigger the company the worse they are at paying on time.

Yes, Pepsico, I am singling you out for this shocking behaviour, stand up so everyone can see you!

60 days agreed payment terms… more like 240 (very much not agreed) days!

[And breathe… it still rankles me.]

However, there is a golden nugget that you might not be aware of, in the guise of Statutory Interest, and this is your reward for reading this article right down to the bottom, because you will be thanking me for this one! It’s a doozy!

Basically, the UK Government² have put a scheme in place, so that you are within your legal right to charge interest on any late payments.

This currently stands at 8% over the Bank of England base rate, so today that would equate to 13.25% p.a.

However, what I have done VERY effectively in the past, is just used my awareness of Statutory Interest to get those late invoices paid!

Here’s a step by step guide (assuming 30 days payments terms):

• 29 Feb send out the initial invoice.

• 15 March send out a statement, giving clients an opportunity to raise a query if they’ve not received an invoice and it’s not on their system yet.

• 29 March – payment should occur.

• If payment has not occurred by 20 April (despite second statement sent on 15th) then send an email ‘from Brenda’ asking them to advise when payment will be made and letting them know that ‘if payment is not received by 29 April, we will be issuing an additional invoice for Statutory Interest for £[XX]’, insert amount using the interest calculator here to work it out.

Just sending this email out advising of additional charges is usually enough to chivvy them along and make the payment.

• 29 April – if payment has not been made, then issue the additional invoice stating:

“We are exercising our statutory right to claim interest (at 8% over the Bank of England base rate) and compensation for debt recovery costs under the Late Payment legislation, because we were not paid according to our agreed credit terms.”

 However, in my experience the overwhelming number of clients will want to avoid the additional charge and so the invoice is usually settled very promptly once the client is aware that it will cost them more money if they don’t.

Let’s face it, if you have a bunch of invoices to pay and cash flow is tight, which one are you going to pay first? The one that will cost you more if you don’t.

No awkward phone calls necessary, the ever efficient Brenda can deal with it all via email, without you having to get involved in the ugly business of payment chasing.

What a virtual life saver she is!

Do forward this on to any freelance friends, as they may not be aware of No.5, it’s not exactly advertised anywhere, and surely everyone hates payment chasing. 

You’re welcome!

K8x

PS: Do feel free to spend that money I’ve just made you on a paid subscription to ‘Off on a Tangent with Kate Darracott’. 😉

Join in the comments below:

Were you aware of UK Statutory Interest, if so, do you use it?

Do you have invoices overdue for payment and how long?

Do let me know if you have any other questions or concerns about going or being freelance, I love to nerd out on this subject! 🤓

Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, it really helps others find it.

1. There are lots of similar services around, have a shop around, I’m not an affiliate. 😉

2. If you are based in another country it’s probably worth you checking to see if there is a similar scheme that your Government has put in place to help small businesses and the self-employed, often just the knowledge of that scheme is enough to move your client towards payment. You won’t always need to implement it.