SAAS for Freelance Designers
When you are an independent talent, you become everything. You're both the general manager and office boy. However, this doesn't mean that you have to do every task by yourself.
The first thing I outsourced was accounting. Although I majored in economics and am sure I can do it all by myself, the time it will take didn't make any sense. It’s not a SAAS service but I know SAAS services for accounting exists in some countries.
The first software I used as SAAS was Adobe Tools. As a designer, that's not something I can do without, while it's the most expensive one.
I invested in Adobe long before it turned to be SAAS but as important as the trade tools are existence on the Internet. Although Facebook and Instagram might be good to follow clients -at least in the design category; they won't come through those channels. You must have your domain and a well-designed, regularly updated website. I chose Squarespace for it and have been using it for many years now. For me, the crucial part was the ease of updating the site and the functionalities it offered. There are also some other reasonable alternatives to Squarespace, such as Webflow.
As I pay for Adobe Cloud membership, I try to make good use of it. I regularly remove old work and add new ones to keep 35milimetre.com fresh and active. In some cases, I need to reference my old work for a new project. In those Adobe Behance comes to the rescue as I post all my work there, sorted chronically.
As your clients become international, you don't need business cards any longer; still, you'd need to look professional, and you can't accomplish that with an e-mail address that ends with gmail.com or live.com. You should be using the same domain as your website. E-mail is crucial as most of the communication will run through it. It should be a dependable service. When I first started using professional services, I went with Yahoo Small business, but as the company went into turmoil, so did its professional services. Then I moved to Gmail, but they kept their rates high, and I ended up with Zoho. As of 2021, I've been using their services for over three years and am very happy with them.
Sometimes clients like to act when they see your work on your website. Tawk enables you to track if someone is visiting your website and chat with them if they want to. You can see which country they are connecting from too.
OK, now you have the base setup. However, you’d need to talk with your clients. Although chat & mail is acceptable, the fastest results can be achieved by face-to-face interaction. It’s 2021; who doesn’t have a Zoom account? Skype is a good alternative tool and it has a text chat option too. I use some paid services from Skype. You can get a phone number from the country of your choosing. Therefore, if you have clients in a specific country or countries, you can get multiple local phone numbers from those countries to give a call as if you’re in the exact location.
Of course, when different time zones are involved arranging meetings becomes a hassle. Calendly comes to the rescue at this point. I use the freemium version but may consider paid version if they come up with more affordable options.
Then I needed a reliable tool to receive and deliver my works. Dropbox is a reliable and best option, while Gdrive from Google provides a similar service (definitely not at the level of Dropbox but relatively close) at a much affordable rate. On cloud drive space there is fierce competition, therefore, you may be able to find half a dozen other options juts don’t take into account just the cost side of it but check ease of use by yourself and your clients. Also, Wetransfer can be a good option as it won’t take up space from your paid cloud drive. Wetransfer has some other alternatives too such as Wormhole.
I have been using English for few decades and even lived in the US for a couple of years; therefore, I believe my English is way above average and fluent, but I'm not a native speaker. As most of my work communication is in English, I find a paid subscription to Grammarly very helpful.
Once upon a time, I could easily recall each project I had from the top of my head. Not any longer. Maybe I'm aging, but at the same time, I have more and more work I need to keep track of. I would also need to follow up on the offers I sent. Some clients may come up with a similar project a year later, and you'd need to know what you offered then; there are so many other use cases. I can't express enough how valuable and time saver a CRM solution is. It will make your business more efficient and save you considerable time on day-to-day activities. Google Sheets & Docs would be a good starting point as it's free, but in a short time, you'll realize they fall short.
I use two different solutions; one is Cloze, and the other is Notion. I use the freemium version of Notion, but I guess I can't any longer work without the two solutions. I suppose if Notion improves their solution a bit further and adds functionalities of Cloze, I would switch to premium membership of Notion in a heartbeat. I find Notion more flexible and easy to adapt to my needs. Though Cloze has some good features of itself that Notion lacks as of 2021. There are similar services to Notion, such as Coda. I opted for Notion due to their free options and their rates if I decide to move to paid versions.
If all goes well, most likely you won't have to do everything by yourself. You'll want to outsource parts of your work to other designers; better yet, your clients will be so much pleased with what you do they'll start asking things you don't do but have an idea. My recommendation finds people you trust before they ask about it and keep an outsource list, and when the time comes, share projects with other freelance talents. You'll need to chat with different people, and on that front, you have two options Slack or Microsoft Teams. Two freemium services, I opted for Slack because at the time I started using it, Microsoft Teams wasn't yet around.
As you're everything of your independent company, you're also the marketing & sales manager. You need to get new clients but should also follow up on the old ones. You should always remind them that you're still in business. What better way than a newsletter from time to remind them that you're still delivering work to other clients? Mailchimp is another freemium service you can depend on up until you reach 2000 subscribers.
It’s essential to feed the brain. While working, I prefer to listen to podcasts & Youtube, but if I’m working late, I like to use Spotify, Netflix & Putio, all with paid subscriptions.
There are some honorable mentions that I use from time to time as a free service;
All these tools help me a lot, and happy to pay some as I wouldn’t be able to manage my business without them. Did I miss anything? Do you have any other SAAS service to recommend?
