I did raise my rates with my long term client. I handled it pretty much exactly as how you suggested. I told them what the other clients pay versus what they pay. I did not raise them the entire 30%.

I work with two VPs of the company. One responded positively with “Worth every penny!”. The other VP sent me an email whining about the bad timing of my increase due to the bad economy. Then he apologized over the phone. I did not take his comments personally because he is just trying to protect his own job.

This is a good topic to discuss frequently. The best thing I got from your discussion is that my struggles are completely normal. We are all guilty of giving our talents away.

For my Joomla site I’m working on, I use Dreamweaver CS5 for editing the design elements. It took me a while to get it set up, but now I can edit the content online and the design elements / look feel of the site within Dreamweaver.

I took on a web development project recently for VERY little money just to get the client-relationship experience as a brand new freelancer. I get paid monthly, and I work on the project when I have time. No contracts involved. This has been a great way to help me figure out how much to charge on a better-paid future project. I will not go about it the same way next time, but it is working great so far for my first time as a learning experience.

Thanks for all of the really great advice and feedback on Linked In.

How do I get clients through Twitter? I talk to people. Passing links is great, but nothing beats a personal connection made through conversation. When clients contact me for work, it’s usually because of something I said during a conversation that clicked with them. From time to time, I also teach through Twitter. I know that seems odd because of the character limit, but I’m here to tell you, it can be done.

I have had good response when posting to this group but admit I haven’t done a good job keeping up with it.

LinkedIn really isn’t social like facebook and twitter, but for me it has proven to be a great resource for business networking.

I have experience designing and preparing files for wide format output. I wrote some articles about this on my own website. Then I joined a wide format group on LinkedIn and posted links to my articles. My articles were read by an editor from Sign of the Times trade publication. I now write a bi-monthly column for Sign of the Times, and I get paid for the column.

I’m really curious how Firgs is picking up work from twitter. I’ve built a pretty good network of online friends but have no clue how that translates to more business for me.

Great podcast. I really enjoyed hearing your voices. I can relate to so much of what you have shared.