The Art of Influence: 5 Ways to Affect Your Outcomes and Attract Clients
If you want to be successful, you need to be influential. Influence can be positive or negative, and everyone has influence. The key for success
Alvalyn Lundgren
professional development
ARTICLES.
Tips and Insights on Mission, Mindset, Mechanics, and Marketing for Freelance Creatives
A 5-Point Tune Up For Your Freelance Business
As with vehicles, your freelance business needs regular tune-ups to ensure smooth performance and prevent breakdowns. If you’re the owner of an independent creative services
Alvalyn Lundgren
How To Work With Purchase Orders
You’ve landed a highly-desired big name client and they’ve sent you a purchase order. What is a purchase order, and how do you work with
Alvalyn Lundgren
Year-End Planning For a Propserous New Year
Planning is necessary for any business owner. Going through an end-of-year assessment in order to set up for the next can lead you into more
Alvalyn Lundgren
4 Onboarding Steps For Successful Client Relationships
So you have a brand-new shiny client that you’re excited to be working with. You’re looking forward to helping them achieve their goals. They’ve accepted
Alvalyn Lundgren
5 Outreach Steps For Winning Better Clients
Successful freelancing is a matter of finding the right clients in the right places for the right reasons. Every client you take on affects your
Alvalyn Lundgren
How To Get Repeat Business
Client retention is tied more to character than to talent.
Alvalyn Lundgren
Why Freelancers Should Have an Agency-Styled Website To Attract Clients
If you’re an independent creative professional, you probably already have a website showcasing your amazing portfolio. Portfolios are a necessary component of any freelancer’s website,
Alvalyn Lundgren
No-Money Marketing Tips for Creative Freelancers
We are always marketing. From the quality of our work to how we talk about ourselves, we are constantly sending messages into the public square,
Alvalyn Lundgren
Set Goals, Not Resolutions
Have you made resolutions for the new year? What do you want to accomplish? What do you want to change? Where do you see yourself
Alvalyn Lundgren
12 Rules for Freelance Success
Setting and maintaining boundaries will help you avoid relationships and circumstances that are potentially harmful.
Alvalyn Lundgren
Business Deductions For Freelancers
These are the freelance business deductions you can take for the 2025 tax year if you’re established as a sole proprietor or single member LLC,
AlvalynCreative
Freelancing in the Age of AI
Technology fosters challenges and opportunities, and the freelance creative needs to address both in their creative process and business systems.
AlvalynCreative
12 Questions You Need to Ask Every Client BEFORE You Accept Their Project
Have you ever gotten involved on a project and then realized that neither the project nor the client is ideal? The project that was going to
Alvalyn Lundgren
7 Places to Find Freelance Clients Online and Offline
One of the huge differences between a salaried worker (a W2-based employee) and a freelancer is that freelancers need to always be looking for work.
Alvalyn Lundgren
Discovery Isn’t Strategy
A mistake freelance creatives can easily make is to diagnose and strategize with a prospective client before they become an actual client. This often happens
AlvalynCreative
Working Late: 5 Essential Boundaries for Freelancers
From time to time I’ll fire off an email to a client during the late evening or early morning hours. Occasionally, an immediate response comes back
Alvalyn Lundgren
How Do I Know If I Will Be Successful At Freelancing?
A student asked me the same question I asked my teachers: “How do I know if I will be successful at freelancing?” After 35 years
Alvalyn Lundgren
Legislation and Policy Impacting Freelancers In 2025
Creatives don’t always concern themselves with what’s going on in areas of laws and policies. We’re more likely to watch trends and pay attention to
AlvalynCreative
Twelve Books To Boost Your Creative Business
It’s widely acknowledged that there is a direct correlation between reading and success. But it’s not the amount you read, it’s what you read. There’s
Alvalyn Lundgren
Create A Social Media Connection Strategy
When you’re in business, you use social media differently than you do personally. I was an early adopter on many social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook
Alvalyn Lundgren
I Didn’t Get the Job
When you’re in business for yourself and you are regularly seeking new clients and projects, you will come across all types of prospects in your
Alvalyn Lundgren
The Freelancer As Business Owner
When you start freelancing you become a business owner and are responsible for the success or failure of your enterprise. Honestly, it can go either way,
Alvalyn Lundgren
How To Pay Yourself As A Freelancer
Paying yourself as a freelancer is often as perplexing as how to price your services. To simplify it, begin with the knowledge that there are
AlvalynCreative