Author: Cheptiony Mutai

  • How to Sift Through Many Applications When Hiring a Freelancer

    When you put out clear requirements for the job you are offering, you will get several applications. So, what makes many freelancers to apply to your job post?

    With more and more experts joining the freelancing business,  the competition is becoming fiercer.

    Before I delve into today’s topic, here are additional things that makes many freelancers to bid on your offer.

    NOTE: Only clients who have been hiring freelancers for a long time can quickly tell an honest freelancer and one who is not.

    Budget

    It’s obvious, freelancers want to be paid well for the service they are rendering.

    If the requirements are clear and your budget is good, many freelancers will apply to your job post.

    Timelines

    If you need the project done quickly and you indicate when you want the project delivered in your job description, any available freelancer will bid. Freelancers see this as an opportunity to make a quick buck.

    Non Disclosure Agreement

    Serious freelancers love to sign an NDA. This is a binding contract and it means that, if anything happens, you are in discretion to decide not to pay the freelancer.

    In this case, you attract serious freelancers. At the end you will have hard time selecting the one to work with.

    There are other many other additional things that will alter the number of applications like Freelancers level of experience, payment method verification and more.

    So how do you sift through many freelancers bidding on your contract? Well it starts with your job posting. That’s where you set the rules.

    Eliminate Freelancers Who Haven’t Followed Your Bidding Instructions

    Not all the freelancers who apply to your job post read the post itself. Instead, they copy and paste generic cover letters.

    There is nowhere in the cover letter that they address your needs. Usually 10-20% of the applicants fall under this category.

    Correctly Answered Questions

    If you had additional questions that you needed freelancers to answer in order to qualify, check on them thoroughly.

    Make sure that they are correctly answered. You will find some who their answers do not match with your requirements thus you should eliminate them from the list.

    Honesty

    Only clients who have been hiring freelancers for a long time can quickly tell a honest freelancer and one who is not.

    Look thoroughly between the lines of their cover letters for honesty.

    Most of the honest guys will for instance not exaggerate timelines or what they can deliver and what they can’t.

    Review their Ratings

    This is only applicable to long term freelancers as new freelancers have no ratings. Reading their reviews will tell you the kind of personality the freelancer is.

    Some may have good cover letters, portfolios, but have poor history regarding to meeting timelines and delivering the actual project. No one likes such experiences.

    Check Their Location if it Was Part of Your Requirement 

    While some freelancing sites will help you on this, not all of them will do. If you were looking for a freelancer within a certain city, you can then look into this and eliminate those who do not fit into the criteria.

    Budget 

    Once you have all the requirements met, see how much each of the remaining freelancers are charging you.

    Focus on the ones who fit within your budget. This way, both of you will be happy working together.

    At this point, you will be remaining with few freelancers, and you can now start shortlisting them.

    Always aim at hiring a freelancer for a long term. You can achieve this by hiring a few of them to do a trial project then narrow in to one who has the best characteristics you are looking for.

    Looking at this in a long-term perspective will give you time to focus on the most important things in your life.

    That is, it from me today.

    How do you sift through the list of freelancers applying to your project? Share it in the comments below.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials for your software or apps, you can request a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • 5 New Ways to Make More Money Online As a Video Producer

    Producers who have been in the industry long enough, will agree with what I am about to share with you today in this blog post.

    Video production has evolved over time. When I started as a producer back in the year 2010, I only knew videography and video editing.

    In this blog post, I share with you how to make more money by breaking down video editing and production components and offering each one of them as an independent service. 

    If you are creative enough to produce a captivating video, then, you are also creative enough to write the same script. You just need to believe you can do it.

    Clients will love you more if you can go an extra mile and provide a professional voice over. Find ways that you can get the voice cheaply from freelancers and have your client pay more it.

    I recently learnt this. More and more clients are in need of Subtitling service. It can be for a movie or video intended to be viewed in a different language. YouTube has integrated Google translate on their video player so that you can watch a video in any language.

    You can charge between $10-100 per video depending on your clients budget and video duration.

    Every video producer know how to use graphic design software’s like Adobe Photoshop  or Adobe illustrator. You can propose to design a nice custom thumbnail for your client and charge them $5-50 per thumbnail. The rates you charge is up to you. If you haven\’t done this before, here is the best way to get started.

    There are many other things you can do to make more money as a online video producer in 2019.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here.

    You can follow me on Twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 4 Temptations You Should Avoid At All Cost When You Hire a Freelancer

    Like the Lord’s prayer ‘...lead us not into temptations, but deliver us from evil..\’ the following temptations that comes along with sub-contracting or hiring a freelancer to work on your projects (or some of your projects) should be avoided at all costs if you find yourself falling into them.

    If you are someone enterprising, and you deliver great work, then satisfied clients will refer you to their fellow businessmen. At the end of the day, you will have a lot of fulfilling projects to work on.

    Obviously, as a client or an enterprising freelancer with deep knowledge in video production, you will be determined to find a fellow freelancer with the right skills to help you out.

    Here are 3 common temptations that may cost you time and reputation. Each time you notice them, remember the Lord’s prayer and take action.

    Everyone loves to pay less for more. Now, bargains comes with a price in the freelancing world. On the other hand, experience will teach you a lot. For example, you will know the best bargain for a certain service. New freelancers may quote lower prices promising to deliver the best.

    Others will use other peoples video examples to convince you. You will know this during the interview. Don\’t ever be tempted to hire someone cheaper hoping to make 10X profit out of the project. 90% of them will surprise you with lower quality work. That\’s the last thing you will want to hear.

    Freelance entrepreneurship can be very demanding. You are after making more sales and profits. Focusing on making more profits within a set period of time can cause you to push whoever you hire to speed up the production. This is dangerous. Creativity and inspiration to create compelling videos requires time. Give them time to utilize their creativity in order to produce quality work.

    First, this is unprofessional. In the project you hired for, you are the team leader. For this case, you should take your time to thoroughly review the video and request for changes where necessary. Usually, the first draft require many revisions. Ask the contractor to make these changes. When you are happy and confident enough to share your work with the client, do so. This will save you a lot of heartache. Besides, the clients will view you as someone professional.

    A bad review by a freelancer can hurt you chances of attracting high quality freelancers in future. Set your standards through your communications with them when you hire. Don\’t let them drag you to their problems. E.g some freelancers have a tendency of complaining about one thing or another after you have hired them. Don\’t let this get into you. Remind them of what your initial contract with them says. Be very stern. This will make them respect you as a client and deliver extraordinary service.

    And that is it from me today.

    There are many other temptations you should avoid at all cost when sub-contracting work to a freelancer. Do you know of any? Share it with me in the comments section below.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, let me know here.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 5 Ways to Positively Deal With Irritating, Slow & Unresponsive Clients

    If you are an organized freelancer, you know how disappointing a client who is slow to respond can be. They share their feedback after a very looooonnnng.. time. If you are a video producer, you will be tempted to think that they are experimenting with the video you produced for them first, before providing you with their feedback.

    Others will provide their feedback 3 weeks later and expect you to act on them ASAP. Such client behaviors will mess up with your priorities as you will need to shift your attention to their request first.

    And after you submit the corrections, the same client will go silent again and weeks later, they will respond with more request for changes. Honestly, such conduct is unfair.

    Over time, I have dealt with such clients and here are five ways to manage it without loosing your motivation.

    Set Your Rules

    Base the rules on your experience overtime. Rules will vary based on the job that you do. Apply them based on the conditions that your client sets. For example, you will not use the rule of delay when the client has clearly stated that they want their work completed within a set period of time. Unless, they surpass the deadline without any reason, you can then use them.

    Your penalty has to be reasonable. Something that your client is happy to accept. For example, I usually charge extra $50 if the client provides his/her feedback later than 7 days. This is unless the client explains in advance that there will be a delay in feedback. Client knowing that there is a penalty will speed up his/her review process.

    This works only after the client is happy with the first video review and wants some minor changes. Also, the period it takes the client to provide their first feedback review is a good indicator. Most freelancing sites automatically releases payment within 7-14 days. At the end, even if they take 30 days to respond, you will have the full payment with you.

    Only do this if your efforts are futile. The support team will message them and advise them to contact you. In most occasions, it works.

    Some clients do not delay intentionally. They may be dealing with a big team and thus delay. Tell them the effects of them delaying. For instance, if you are working with a voice over guy like I do, the working terms you have with them may not accommodate delays. e.g The V.O guy may give me a 2 days revision window period.

    And that is it from me today.

    If you need help to create professional screen-cast videos, let me know by requesting a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptionymutai

  • 5 Promising Artificial Intelligence Tools For Freelancers

    Is artificial Intelligence(AI) simplifying your Freelancing business or are you scared that it will replace your skills? You don’t have to be worried at all. Instead, you need to embrace it and look at different ways of using it to grow your business.

    At the moment, there are several AI tools out there. In order to remain relevant as a freelancer, you need to enhance your existing skills, build your personal brand and view AI as an aid not an hindrance.

    Here are 6 Promising AI tools that you check out and try.

    Calendar

    Calendar harnesses the power of machine learning to give you smart suggestions for when, where and how your meetings can take place. The app is still in alpha mode.

    SpinnerChief

    What this app does may scare many writers who write original content. Not only is able to generate hundreds of new articles in minutes for you, but also in one click it can rewrite articles to a very high level of readability and uniqueness because it uses the best natural language analysis and artificial intelligence techniques to understand your articles in the same way as google does.

    EveryPixel

    This is a search engine for stock images powered by AI. You can filter your search to show only FREE images.

    I started using it this year and so far so go, it is serving me well. The downside of this app is that it does not show videos.

    Logopony

    An awesome logo for your business is just a few clicks away with logopony. By entering the name of your business and a slogan, the app will generate several logos so that you can choose the one you like and customize it.

    Smartertime

    Smartertime is an intelligent assistant to measure, analyse and improve your time use. Currently the app is available on Google playstore and the iOS version of it is still in Beta.

    There are many other AI tools out there being developed. Do you know of an AI tool you think other Freelancers can benefit from? Please let us know by sharing it on the comments below.

    If you need help to produce professional screen-cast video tutorials, you can request a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • 3 Steps To Closing Your First Deal as a Freelancer

    If you are starting up as a freelancer, you know how hard it is to close your first deal going by the fact there are hundreds of other freelancers out there who are 10x better than you.

    monochrome photography of people shaking hands
    Photo by Savvas Stavrinos on Pexels.com

    How do you get over fear that you will not succeed before you even take your first step? How do you compete with other qualified freelancers and emerge the best in the business?

    You see,

    At end of the day, you have to make more sales. With time, you will want to concentrate high value contracts. To get your feet on the ground, here are 3 steps to closing your first deal even if you have no experience at all.

    Research on Your Clients’ Requirements And Address them in Your Cover Letter

    This may sound obvious but most people fail to do it right. Serious clients searching for freelancers will prefer to work with someone who addresses the pain points of the problem in their cover letter. Stick to the topic of the job.

    In this day and age, or rather in the freelancing world, no one cares if you have 10 years of experience…all they want is someone who is ready to solve their problem faster- and get paid. Stick to that. Tell them how you are going to do it. Be brief.

    Offer to Speak to Your Prospect on Call

    This only comes in handy if a client shows interest in your proposal by messaging you. scheduling a call is convenient to someone who is busy and not ready to have e-mail exchanges back and forth. Demonstrate that you are confident enough about the job on offer by proposing to have a call. Majority of clients, are willing to get on call with you in the time that you propose.

    Ask Them to Close the Deal to Enable You Start

    Now, I know this sounds very unusual to many but it works. Don’t wait for the client to close the deal, ask them to do so once they have provided you with all the required information. Be polite while doing so. This works best when you set a deadline. Don’t let them assume and wait for you to work without a contract in place. It is risky as it may not end up well. Them putting money on escrow demonstrates commitment.

    And that is it from me today.

    If you need help to create professional screen-cast video tutorials, request a free quote here.

    Until next time, bye, bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony.

  • 5 Reasons Why a Prospect Will Kick Your Ass Just When You Are About to Close The Deal

    It doesn\’t matter if the project at hand is big or small – the psychology of closing a sale is the same. Now, if you are fond of copying other people ways of handling business-then this explains why you are always loosing/or getting your a** kicked just when you are about to close a sale.

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    It\’s a no brainier. If your prospect notices a little sign of desperation or display of fear, they will doubt your service and chicken out. All this can be interpreted from the conversations you have with them either on e-mail or call.

    I too, sometimes find myself as a victim. But, I have learn\’t a lot from them. Here are 5 common things that will make a serious client start procrastinating on whether to work with you or not.

    Lack of DEEP Understanding of Your Prospects Video Requirements

    Now, I am talking here of serious clients who are ready to buy your video services… Not the many \’internet window shoppers\’ who are just making inquiry with unclear needs. Serious clients are ready to spend if you clearly convince them that you have the capability of delivering the kind of video they are looking for.

    Watch Video – Deal Breakers in The Freelancing Business

    Now get this, there is \’shallow\’ understanding of the \’need\’ at hand and there is a \’deep\’ understanding of the need. Deep understanding can only be gained from experience of doing the same thing over and over for a very long time. And this goes hand in hand with \’high spenders.\’

    Poor English or Several Grammatical Mistakes in Your Communications

    Now, I admit, English is not my native language. But I had to learn how to communicate well in English. This way, I am able to show how serious I am in engaging with global collaborators. Now, let me explain why this can become the last thing in the list of your requirements. The first thing is usually the \’Skills, followed by timeline, then cost and finally communication.

    In occasions when I am hiring, I can quickly tell from the communication whether someone will be fun working with or not. Any client hiring is looking to reduce their workload. If they find that they are struggling to understand what you are trying to communicate to them, they will re-think on hiring you. I mean you are giving them double work.

    Greed for More Pay

    Again, prospects ready to spend will not look at the cost first. They will look at your skills. They determine this by sharing their requirements. Once satisfied, they will request that you give them a quote. When you provide a quote of say $500. They, will send you an e-mail, saying,

    \’Just to confirm, you say you will charge only $500 to create the video with revisions… Is that correct.\’

    The word \’Only\’ in that sentence will arouse greed in a freelancer. Most guys are tempted to start hiking the amount by introducing \’add ons\’ that was not there before.

    If you are the \’greedy\’ type of freelancer; go take a cold shower before replying that e-mail because you will end up loosing the business by allowing temptations to set their foot on your door:-)

    Too Slow to Meet the Deadlines

    Busy clients set their deadlines. When they contact a freelancer to work on their project, they need it like yesterday. Give them a reasonable deadline and inform them that on request, you can work overtime (in the evenings/holidays of-course), if it\’s urgent. Then tell them how much more you will charge them for overtime. You being honest, they will offer to pay you more if they need the video that FAST. Address them like a fellow human being but stick to the context. They are humans like you only in a different planet.

    Inability to Handle a Single Portion of The General Requirements

    This is what I mean when it comes to video production. Sometimes, a prospect needs someone who can handle everything from Scripting, story-boarding, voice over and video production. They don\’t care how you do it. They just need someone who can tell them they can and prove it. If you are a honest freelancer, tell them what you can and what you can\’t handle. This will help them decide and their decision may not be in your favor. That is fine. Joy comes when you do what you can do best.

    There are many other more reasons which will make a prospect choose not to work with you. One among those being uncertainty when explaining yourself in your e-mail. Always be yourself. Be confident in what you think you can offer.

    And That is it from me here.

    If you need help to create professional screen-cast videos, send a request a free quote here and I will get back to you.

    Until next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • Dealing With Difficult Clients -4 Ways to Go Around It

    There is nothing stressful like dealing with a difficult client. In most occasions, you get into business dealings with them while you are in your happy mode. In fact, when they share details about what they want done for them, you are quick to accept. Now, you have started work as agreed, and submitted your draft for them to review. This is where you realize that the client is quite difficult to deal with.

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    Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.com

    Even though he/she doesn\’t mention it anywhere, you can sense from their comments that something is not right. Their behavior keeps you in a puzzle. They are not particular on anything. For instance, they may say there is a glitch in the video without indicating which minute the glitch is originating from. When you reply and ask them to be specific, they either keep quite or they respond with another new issue without addressing the former.

    Such clients make producers\’ work difficult by not communicating clearly. If you find yourself in such situation; what will you do? Will you ask the client to close the contract and hand it over to someone else? Or will you find a way to advise your client to help you out (through feedback) to correct the mistakes? Here are 3 ways to overcome this hurdle.

    Understand That There is No Difficult Client – It\’s You Who is Difficult

    If a client agrees to award you a contract, it means they love your work. Now, you should be creative enough to resolve issues that arise while working on the contract. Never accept defeat unless the client himself gives up on you for failing to be answerable. Be that person who never mix business with emotions. Sometimes, the client maybe telling you the truth but you don\’t want to accept it.

    Find New Approaches to Get Your Client Provide a Clear Feedback

    Google (through it\’s products) have made this easy for everyone. You can create an excel sheet or Google docs file and advise your client to use the same in providing feedback. This way, you can monitor progress by striking out resolved comments. Be the initiator. You can create a table with segments to motivate the client to simplify his/her comments. e.g one column maybe for them to enter time-codes and another one for comments related to that time-code.

    Brief Them When You Find Difficulty Understanding Their Comments

    We all look at things differently thus our understanding vary. It thus means that the client will provide their brief and feedback in the best way they know. Be open if you find difficulty understanding. Make suggestions on the best way they can do it. Most of them are willing to listen to you and do it your way. Those who want things done their way will go a step further to teach you how.

    Be Patient And Wait For Them To Communicate Back

    Difficulty with clients varies. For instance, some have a problem with communication. They take long to respond because of their busy schedule. They can go a whole week without communicating back. Don\’t give up so fast. Give them time to respond. But follow up if they don\’t after every 2 days to remind them.

    As they say, there are many ways to kill a bird. Keep going and never let any negative feedback or bad communication bar you from delivering your best.

    And that is it from me today.

    If you need help to create professional videos for your online business, let me know by requesting a free quote here.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • Where to Find FREE Background Music And Sound Effects with Up to Date Database

    Most people only know YouTube as a video hosting site where one can freely share as well as learn from others. What they don\’t know is; you-tube also hosts very cool free music that you can use anywhere without worrying about copyright infringement.

    Of-course there are several other Youtube channels that publish free video footage that you can download and use it in any of your project. There are also other users who share different sound effects that you can download and use it as you want in your video.

    While their contribution serves many users who are searching for a particular kind of sound ; they do not have a variety to choose from. In other words, they are not consistent.

    That is why Youtube saw that it was fit to have Free music available to encourage video creators produce good video content.

    You can access the free music here.

    There are thousands of music to choose from. Here are few reasons why youtube Audio Library stands out.

    All Music and Sound effects in One Place

    You can find a collection of different music genres in one place. All of these music are free. You can download and use it right away.

    Easy to Select

    These music are arranged in order of genre, mood, instrument, duration, attribution and more. Choose the category you want and play to preview.

    Search By Keyword

    Lets say you are looking for children\’s background music. Just type in \’children\’ on the search bar and hit enter. You will be presented with different music/sounds created particularly for children.

    You Can See What\’s New

    When scrolling through the files, you will see \’new\’ beside the audio. Here you will know its a new audio and you can be the first one to preview it and probably download and use it.

    Note: If you already knew about this free resource, share it with your clients and ask them to help you choose an audio they feel it\’s fit for their project.

    That\’s it from me today.

    If you need help to create a professional video for your project, let me know by requesting a free quote here.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    Follow me on twitter @cheptiony

  • 5 Ways to Troubleshoot Problems of Video Quality Issues in Your Camtasia Screen Recordings

    There is nothing frustrating in video Screen-casting like a client telling you that the quality of the videos you sent to him/her are horrible. Considering the time you have spent recording, editing and finally delivering the video; being told this is heartbreaking.

    With this said, the client is always right. So, you have to find a solution or else, the client may decide not to pay you at all.

    Now, before you starting thinking about re-recording the videos, here are the best approaches to solving this problem.

    Ask The Client How He/She is Playing The Videos

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    Video player

    Many a times, the problem may be emanating from the client. Some video players do not play some formats. Also, if the video is rendered in 2K or 4K quality; and he/she tries to play the video on a small laptop of 18 inch screen using windows media player or any other player, it will lag and look as if it has some scratches on it. This is because of high video resolution. If you are sure the quality of the video is good and can play fine on your system, advise the client about it. Tell them that 2K and 4K videos only play smoothly on 24 inch and 27 inch screens consecutively. This way they can try other ways. The best solution for this case will be uploading the video to Youtube and choosing 1080p settings on youtube video player.

    Ask Them To Download The Video To Their Desktop And Play

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    Ask them to download the video and watch them on their system

    Am sure most freelancers and clients collaborate and share files via FTP. The most popular here being google drive and dropbox. If you use one of these FTP\’s to share video files, you will agree with me that playing videos directly online is sometimes a big problem. With this said, while sharing high quality videos, it\’s important to notify the client that the quality of the videos might be compromised when played directly from the FTP thus they should download them for the best viewing results.

    If at this point you find that the problem is indeed originating from you, the the following steps will help you find a solution.

    Choose Full Screen When Recording Screens

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    Choose full screen for \’recording area\’ in Camtasia

    There are two things that will determine the final output quality of your video. First is the screen resolution you choose from the Camtasia screen recorder. The best option is recording Full screen. You can cut out sections of the screen you don\’t want while editing.

    Second, is the zoom percentage of your browser. This is if you are recording a tutorial that requires the use internet browser. if you are recording it on 24 inch screen, set the zoom on your chrome browser to 125% and 150% for 27 inch screen. This will make text on your screen recordings easy to read. Also, the quality of your screen recordings will be good.

    Choose Editing Canvas Dimensions To At-least 1920×1080 Pixels

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    Camtasia editing dimensions

    Most clients are happy with these dimensions. This is good for editing all the recordings as your can stretch video to fit the screen. Also with this setting, you can render videos in lower HD resolution like 720p.

    NOTE: If you edit a video recorded in a 4K screen resolution with 1920×1080 canvas dimension, the final video output will be clear and crisp.

    Video Production Settings

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    Camtasia production settings

    Lastly, the video quality problem may be arising from your final production settings. It\’s important to create a custom present for this in Camtasia. Here, there are two key things to look into; first is the key-frame rate and secondly is the encoding mode. The lower the key-frame rate the higher the quality of your videos. I usually set my key-frame rate to between 5 to 10 depending on the video duration. Lower keyframes results in a large video file. It\’s also good to set encoding mode percentage to at least 75%.

    Bonus tip!

    If you are recording videos of you scrolling down a page, you computer RAM will determine how smooth the scroll will be. Low RAM will record choppy screens while high RAM will record smooth scrolls. Also, it is important to install more RAM when recording Game Plays. 16 GB of RAM or more is recommended.

    And that is it from me today.

    If you need help to create and produce professional screen-cast videos or any type of ex-plainer video, request a free quote here.

    Till next time, bye bye and take care.

    You can follow me on twitter @cheptiony