The great guys over at FreelanceSwitch have released another ebook (following the great Rockstar Freelancer ebookb that was brilliant) this ebook focuses on personal branding and how to market yourself.

Here at Entrepreneur Student we are just getting into reading this new ebook and its looking good! If your interested in more that the guys do checkout their fantastic blog at www.freelanceswitch.com and also download their Rockstar Freelancer ebook for $29!

Freelancing or running a business for that matteris difficult at the best of times, however if you are still in education part time or worse still full time things can become extremely difficult.

We asked a variety of freelancers who are/were still in education how they have delt with the day to day management of running of their business.

From some of the freelance switch forum users with a contrast between the first two answers and the third who believes you should hold off freelancing until your education has been completed:

Deeve07
Have no life.

I did my degree over 6 years part-time (yes, 6 friggin’ years!!!) while working fulltime. Not freelancing at the time, but principle remains the same (actually, would have been easier freelancing). Every second weekend during semester was dedicated to study, and most weekday evenings were as well. My poor suffering girlfriend didn’t last the 6 years…

I might be doing the same next year if I decide to do my Masters, but will be far less painful freelancing than doing it while fulltime.

curtismchale
I have a very understanding wife. I went to school fultime worked a sales/web job a a local canoe store and was working to get my freelance career off the ground. I worked very hard scheduled my time very well. Prioritized, I didn’t volunteer for anything that I didn’t have time for which meant almost anything. I scheduled time to go outside and do stuff like whitewater kayak to stay sane. Now that I am done school I find that I don’t always get as much done as I did when I had more to do.

Benek
I have to say I wouldn’t recommend trying to do too much freelance work while in school. If you’re a full-time university student that should be your focus. You want to experience that as much as you can and get the most out of it because chances are you won’t be back.

When I was in school I freelanced very part time. A few hours a day at the very most, often times only a few hours a week. Then when I started my BFA program I worked it out so that I could do a freelance project as part of my class and get credit for it along with getting paid. But at that point I was still only doing it part time because I had many other projects going and other required activities.

If you want to freelance full-time, wait until you’re out of school. use your school time to learn as much as you can and learn how to be a professional so that when you’re done you can launch into a much more successful and focused career.

If you have any tips or suggestions about running a freelance business while in education, leave comments at the bottom of this post.

Starting up your business or freelance work life you will most certainly need an accountant to start doing your books and tax returns. In this short tip you can find a list of accountants from around the UK along with some much needed accounting software.

http://www.find-uk-accountant.co.uk Find UK accountant is a great site to help narrow down through districts on where to find an accountant.

http://www.jbaccountancy.com JB Accountancy speciallize in small to medium sized business and come very well recommended frm personal experience.

http://www.startinbusiness.co.uk/flowchart/4flowchart_accountants.htm Start In Business is a great resource for finding just what you need to know about starting a new business.

As for software for accounting there are several options available:

http://www.kashflow.co.uk web based accounting package - great for small startups

Sage Instant Accounting - Sage is a simple to use accounting software and comes highly recommended from many different accountants we have spoken to.

Quickbooks - This used to be the accounting software of choice for most  small businesses years ago, however now the interface has become a lot worse, clunkier and very unfriendly.

The Entrepreneur Student team decided it would be a great idea to group together some of the books, CD’s, DVD’s and other materials we find useful as hard working entrepreneurs into an Amazon.co.uk based store for you all to find what you need.

Have a look at what we think you all would benefit from and let us know what we are missing. [Entrepreneur Student Store]

If your a young entrepreneur still in education be it high school, college, university or perhaps already have a job elsewhere and need to keep on top of your own startup business or freelance job then keeping on top of your emails and to-do items is a must when travelling about. Here are some tips and applications that are used by the Entrepreneur Student:

A must have is a reliable email provider and if you are serious about your business then its best look look more professional than using a Hotmail or Yahoo email address so first things first go grab a professional looking domain name if you haven’t already. Now go ahead and setup email with your provider either POP/IMAP, but for the most feature rich option then look for a company that can provide you with a Microsoft Hosted Exchange email solution such as iBox-Security (quote ES4 for a free month of exchange email) or Rackspace who offer a more expensive package but have great support.

What a Hosted Exchange email service allows you to do is not only receive your emails instantly without the need to keep hitting refresh or check mail as they are PUSHED to all your connected devices/computers at once. This also works with your contacts address book, task list and calendar. In our case each member has a laptop for work, home computer and mobile phone (in my case an Apple iPhone) so all that is needed is to add your Exchange email account to your computers, laptops and phones which lets you get all your emails, calendar events and contacts up to date every time there is a change.

Now when you meet a new business lead and you are out of the office simply add their contact details to your phone and instantly they are added to your address book on your laptop and pc allowing you to later email your new lead as soon as you get back to the office.

Email is a great tool if you use it correctly and efficiently, the next post in this series will talk about phone applications for better productivity.

When it comes to building your business no matter if its a small business based out of your home office (or shed) or already got your company an office having your own space online is crucial. Depending on what type of business you run and the demand are both important factors to determine the hosting requirements for your website.

First of all you have to purchase a domain name which if you havent already there are many domain registrars to choose from, Entrepreneur Student recommends 123 REG.

Search for a domain name

Powered by 123-reg.co.uk

123REG are very simple to use (they support PayPal as a payment method) and are very affordable for domain names. Other domain registrars that are also very affordable include Godaddy however can be difficult and timely to move your domains should you wish later on to another registrar.

For hosting needs most small to medium sized enterprises can succsefully manage on a shared hosting package such as the packages supplied by Host Gator. One thing to be aware of when looking for a new hosting company is that when they tell you that your account will have *unlimited* bandwidth, space or anything…its not to be believed. Once your account starts to use excessive bandwidth or space (such as content distribution - video etc) get ready for your account to be shut off without warning or cancelled often without warning. This sort of advertising of unlimited data is very common with cheaper hosting companies, the best solution is to look around and actually call companies or source your local tech/IT guy and ask for advice. Searching in the South West (Somerset) in Google will provide a good list of website hosting companies.

Anything above a small-medium sized business would really want to take a look at larger hosting solution such as a VPS (Virtual Private System) some great solutions can be found with companies such as WebFusion . With larger organizations a Semi/Dedicated Server would allow much more control over the system and capabilities of the server, a good provider of dedicated servers are Rapid Switch but if you want fantastic support and reliability try out Rackspace who really cant be beaten for dedicated servers.

If you require a custom solution for you online business website our sponsors can help you every step of the way from domain names, basic hosting, advanced hosting, email newsletter marketing, search engine optimization and so much more. Use the promo code ES3 for a 10% discount on your order with iBox-Security

Whether your a new business starting out, young entrepreneur looking to find clients or new sales leads or an established business you need to keep in touch with your client base and this made simple with email however how do you go about keeping your customers up to date?

There are many email marketing or newsletter providers on the Internet many of which are download-able programs that you may use for free, some that are obvious yet hardly used such as Microsoft Outlook for sending out emails to lists of people (although this may be trivial as your ISP may block you in future for mass emailing) or there is the option of paying for a service either online or again a download-able product (such as GroupMail).

Pure360 a web based newsletter system I personally have had experience in using with newsletters of four thousand plus members. The system itself on the back end can be a bit confusing and misleading to use sometimes with items not clearly labelled as what actions they perform. Sadly if you are not very familiar with HTML or designing templates for your mail outs you will a bit stuck here as they do provide a user friendly editor but its very inaccurate and produces very nasty code and designs. If you are competent with HTML you can go write up the code for your designs although they do not always render correctly when sent out with Pure360. On the plus side you can schedule your newsletters so you can write them in the day and have them automatically sent out at a certain time of day.

MailChimp, i highly recommend as I recently moved away from Pure360 which was becoming very costly in terms of the cost per email being sent was too high. Since i signed up with MailChimp I have found the interface very simple to use and navigate with very helpful hints, tips and suggestions along the way. Staff are extremely helpful being available via email with very quick responses. MailChimp offer two different price plans, one is a monthly subscription where you purchase credits to use and then a pay-as-you-go plan where you purchase your credits (the more you buy the cheaper it gets) and your credits will roll over each month if you do not use all of them.

If your a new company or a student/young entrepreneur on a small budget i highly recommend checking out MailChimp, sign up try it out on a pay-as-you-go plan the smallest being US$15 which is not much at all and you get 500 credits (500 emails).

update: sign up to mailchimp by clicking here and receive 500 free credits!

What experience have you had with other marketing/newsletter providers online? Leave comments.

Whatever your niche or business revolves around if you do work for clients either in the same country or international one of the best ways especially if you are based in the UK is to use PayPal as your form of payments.

Paypal charge low fees for sending and receiving money in your account which is fantastic when you need to bill international clients. You can also build your own HTML forms and have it linked to your account which means you can direct your clients to a page on your site for example www.domain.com/pay-invoice.html where your client may input their invoice number and pay either with their own PayPal account or even by a selection of credit/debit cards which they support.

As a student there isnt always time to read a book so what i tend to do is listen to audio book on my iPhone (most MP3 players will work - especially iPod’s). You can find many great audio books, business, computer and many other topics covered at Audible some of the books I’ve read or are currently in my queue include:

• Warren Buffett Speaks
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Think BIG and Kick Ass in Business and Life
• iCon Steve Jobs

For a paper back book that is well worth the read if your thinking of starting up a business: The Beermat Entrepreneur is a fantastic read an essential book to have on your shelf.

Any thoughts of other books or audio books?

Get two free downloads at Audible.co.uk - Click here and enter the Claim Code: I5QS491O