So, you want to be an editor... who makes money

So, you want to be an editor... who makes money Carolyn L Burke, MA, CISSP, CISM CEO, Integrity Incorporated Executive Director, EAC

Did I really say money?

Each of us needs to earn a living in order to pay our bills and save a little for the future.

But how much?

How much are your services worth?

Or, how profitable are you willing to be?

What do business people know? They know to leverage their knowledge and skills to work for them, but that was last year’s talk. • You work in order to earn a living. • Stay focused.

Warning This presentation may or may not contain numbers, charts, spreadsheets, financial planning and target practice.

Focus = Having a Target

Aiming at the target

ADVANCED BUSINESS SKILLS Expanding your business's offerings Finding more work and new clients Setting and achieving goals LAST YEAR • CONCLUSION • Your mission, vision and values • Running a profitable business with integrity BASIC BUSINESS DECISIONS Are you a freelancer, an employee or a business person? How much are your services or products worth? Are you providing a service or a product? Are you profitable?

Who makes money Signing the contract Collecting your fees Bookkeeping The bottom line Our agenda this year • Regularly • How can you be profitable? • Making those changes A freelancer How much do you charge? What are you charging for? What are your costs? When will you be profitable?

Who makes money Signing the contract Collecting your fees Bookkeeping The bottom line Freelancers and Money • Regularly • How can you be profitable? • Making those changes A freelancer How much do you charge? What are you charging for? What are your costs? When will you be profitable?

How much do you charge? • 24 hours in one day • 365 days in one year 8760 hours • 8 hours in one work day • 220 work days in one year • 1760 working hours

How much do you charge?

How much do you charge? A B C D E F

How much do you charge? E

How much do you charge? A B C D E F

What happened to F ?

What happened to F? • You didn’t charge for all the hours you worked • You didn’t charge for work that wasn’t editing per se Let’s change this

What are you charging for? • Charge for all the hours you work • Charge for work that isn’t editing, such as sales time, project management, administration and billing, managing the client or sub-contractors.

Let’s find out how you spend your day

What are you charging for? Logging your time • Carry a notebook and pen with you. • Use one page per day. • Record each activity as you go, not after the fact.

What are you charging for?

What are you charging for? Tracking your time • Once a week, count all the hours spent on each type of activity. • Log into your time log.

What are you charging for? Your time log

What are you charging for?

What are you charging for? • Are you working efficiently? (lower P) • Are you spending enough time on billable work? (raise B, lower N) • Should you bill for the non-billed work? For sales, admin time, travel? Justify N time: Write a mini essay about why you chose to work for free.

What are you charging for? • On your invoice, add N, A, T, (and M, S) times. Is the total still reasonable? • Next, send that invoice to a client. • Check in. Are they comfortable paying you for all your time? If not, perhaps your rates are too low! I guarantee: you are not billing for all the time you spend on a project.

Charge for everything you do • Log all your time • Analyse the log regularly • Break into categories: marketing, hr, billable time, administration, sales, bookkeeping, planning.

Charge for everything you do • Invoice your time • Your invoice should look like this: • Not like this: Billable hours

What are your costs? G

What are your costs? • Rate-increasing • Skill maintenance • Marketing • Office Flow-through costs • Lease • Subcontractors All tax deductions.

What are your costs? • Which costs can you reduce? • Which can you delay? • Which can you eliminate?

What are your costs?

What are your costs? G

What are your costs? Canada Revenue Agency (CRA): “you can deduct any reasonable expense you incur to earn business income” Tax deductible expenses lower the amount you will owe tax on, thereby raising your overall income.

What are your costs? • Which other personal or household costs could become tax deductions? • Entertainment  sales meetings • Internet and phone  business expenses • Insurance  convert plan to include CGL • Car  travel • Clothes / makeup  deduct if you present to an audience

What are your costs? • When you plan a tax deductible major purchase, consider which tax year the purchase will fall into. • Pick the year with the higher business revenue.

Profit • Profit = Revenues - Expenses

Lower expenses • Reduce all unnecessary expenses

Raise revenues • Raise your rates • Add admin fees

Gross Profits E G H

Reduce taxes Finally, look at other expenses you could deduct. This will lower your profitability, but will put more after-tax money in your pocket.

So, you want to be an editor... who makes money

So, you want to be an editor... who makes money

Presentation Transcript

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