The Best Free Tools That Will Advance Your Video Freelance Career In 2022

Whether you’re starting your freelance career or transitioning into the freelance world after years in the trenches of a full-time job, you’ll find that you’ll now need some tools in your arsenal to make your life that extra bit easier. After all, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions in freelancing – every video editor, animator, compositor, colourist and VFX artist needs different things based on their personal strengths and the needs of their clients. No matter your role, there are some fundamental project management, payment and productivity tools that you’ll need regardless.

The goal of any tool is to optimise your time and reduce inefficiencies so that you can get down to some real billable work, grow your freelance business, and feel more organised and productive — but don’t stress, this article will help you to learn about some of the best free tools for freelancers out there to help you streamline your workflows.

1.?Clickup?for project management:

You’re missing out big time if you’re not using a project management tool like ClickUp. Deemed as the ‘one app to replace them all’, it’s been my go-to app for the two years to manage my client acquisition, project enquiries and their status, planning my scripts, lessons ideas, the list is endless. If you’re someone like me, and you have an overlap of personal and business life tasks that start to merge into one massive calendar, you’ll love the fact that Clickup has workspaces so that you can separate your work and life chores, whilst being able to have an overview of every task to see everything you need to do to start of your day.

I compartmentalise mine into three spaces, x1 personal workspace and for x2 company workspaces, NK Films – to manage my post-production projects, portfolio updates, and website updates. NK Courses – for course research, lesson ideas, digital product updates, scheduling social posts and tracking partnership deals. Clickup also allows you to manage various tasks using a multi-task bar, manage your emails in one place, set goals, track your time, collaborate with a team and invite clients for a discussion about their projects. Clickup is insanely customisable and is constantly releasing updates like mindmaps for planning project ideas, a whiteboard, gantt charts, timelines and a ton more. If you’d like me to create a demo tutorial of my workflow and setup,?you can reach out here.

2.?Wise?for international payments:

Freelancers are always in search of better, cheaper, and more convenient ways to get paid. For freelancers, Wise was one of the best options to get paid?Wise has to be added to your freelancing toolbox. If you don’t like to leave your hard-earned money on the table for the big banks to scoop up, a simple Wise application is a few clicks away. Their transparent fee structure will not leave you guessing.

Wise has shaken up the financial world quite a bit with their extremely low fees that are transparent and clear to the person sending the money upfront. In ten years, 10 million customers have used Wise to transfer money and save on extortionate big banks’ fees.

If you deal with international clients wise is the best option to get paid, some people like Paypal but you would have to consider their transaction fee which is 1.9% to 3.5%.

3.?Loom?for video recording:

Being a freelancer means there’s nothing more important than your clients – new ones especially. So wouldn’t it be great to send them more personal messages?

Because let’s be real, it can be a real pain when you’re trying to?schedule a call when your client is in a different time zone. That’s where?Loom?comes in – Loom is a special screen recorder tool that can do wonders for your freelance business. You can use?Loom for your freelance business??to submit better proposals to new clients and at the same time, communicate better with existing clients. I mostly use a loom to create tutorials and give training to clients, just like if I need to explain them something I just record a video with a loom and just share one single web-based link to the client,?easy to use.

4.?WeTransfer?for big file transfer:

Have you ever had to send a file by email that refused to leave because it was too big? Try Wetransfer, the saviour for video editors sharing large files. As its name suggests, Wetransfer is used to?transfer files.?The free version allows you to send up to 2GB and a paid version, WeTransfer Plus, allows you to transfer up to 20GB. It’s super helpful, fast, and really easy to use. The free version requires no commitment, registration, or account creation. Just go to the site and send the files. However, the recipient has only?one week?to recover the files that have been transferred to him.

The service is also available in?several languages?and, of course, the files can be sent anywhere in the world. This is a very interesting alternative to Google Drive, Dropbox, Framadrop, or Hubic. Pro tip: you can also download the WeTransfer app on the Mac App Store which allows you to drag and drop files in the menu bar icon and hey presto! Your link is copied to the clipboard ready for you to share with your client.

5.?Calendly?for appointment bookings:

Calendly is?a robust, user-friendly appointment bookings scheduling tool?that can help you: Allow others to find booking times that work for them without the back and forth. Organize your time around predictable meeting slots.

Calendly?is a great option for busy freelancers. It analyzes your availability from your main calendar and then creates a personalized booking link you can send to your client, allowing them to choose a time slot within your availability. Calendly also offers:

• A free plan that’s good enough for freelancers. This includes the ability to create regular and one-off meetings with a personalized link, generate meeting notifications, and sync Calendly with one other calendar app.
• Email notifications to both parties to confirm each meeting – including a link to your video conference tool of choice.

If you use other marketing or?customer relationship management (CRM)?tools like Salesforce or Zapier, you can quickly integrate them with Calendly too. With the paid plans you can even charge for the meeting and get paid upfront.

6.??Zoom?for video meetings

If you’re working with clients or other freelancers around the globe, you sometimes don’t share much of a connection. Chances are that you’ve seen at most a picture of a client, nothing more.

When you communicate through Zoom’s video platform, it humanizes the participants. You will start thinking of clients as people, rather than the name next to an email header. The cool part of this is that the client also gets to see you in human form. This isn’t to say that you’re suddenly going to have a great relationship with a client that stiffs you, but being able to see each other makes people interact differently, usually with more empathy.

When meeting with people through video, the first thought on your mind will probably be, “Ugh, I have to start taking notes. Why can’t I just use email?” Close that inbox and prepare to stare in awe at Zoom’s record button! Just click it and enjoy your conversation. When you’re done, the recording automatically converts into MP4 and M4A recordings saved to your computer.

This isn’t just about freedom from the evils of note-taking, though. You can review your conversation to see where you can improve your social skills and even let your client have something on record by sending over a copy.

7.?Frame.io

Frame.io?is a cloud-based video review and collaboration platform with which creative teams can upload, review, and share video content privately. As it’s now owned by Adobe, their pro plan is included in your Adobe Creative Cloud membership (if you don’t have an Adobe Creative Cloud and fancy saving up to 20%, we have occasional discounts?here. Incorporating communication, collaboration, and creative integration tools,?Frame.io?aims to help users streamline the video creation process.?Frame.io?also gives users the flexibility to collaborate from anywhere via their native iOS mobile app.

Collaboration is much easier and asynchronous review is nice for remote workers. It works seamlessly with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Hope this helps. ??

The future of freelancing is bright, and with these tools, you have everything you need to succeed. However, If you want to learn more about getting work, finding clients, pricing, negotiation, and the business side of freelancing then enrol for Freelance Mastery – the #1 freelancer course which helps you to land high-paying clients, fast.

Access Freelance Mastery ???www.nkcourses.co.uk