You need to stay organized and professional to be taken seriously. Of course you can keep things fun and light when dealing with your clients, and be yourself of course. As long as you can deliver and provide top notch service, most clients are more than happy to joke around and have a great time dealing with you. I get a lot of questions about how I bid, and bill ETC so this is a super basic list of programs and services I use to make my income.

#1 Freshbooks. All my billing and invoices come through here, it keeps track of my time and is fantastic! If you keep it under three clients its free (there are ways to do this and have more than three clients FYI) Price FREE

#2 Basecamp. Basecamp is my life its $20 a month and well worth it. I work on music collaborations there. Planning for music videos, even planning new server installs with my tech consulting clients. Price $20 a month

#3 Gmail and Google docs. All my bids, spread sheets etc are kept here. I live in Google docs its amazing and I rarely use Microsoft office these days. Price FREE

#4 Blackmagic Davinci Resolve lite. I am moving from Premiere to this, I really dislike subscription models for software like this. Its so sad I have been a Premiere pro user for years and have done so many TV commercials, music videos and stupid short youtube videos in Premiere its not even funny. I really enjoy it, but its time to move on. Resolve lite is free and seems to be more powerful. I bet it will take me a year to move to it completely as learning a new software takes time when you have used another one for so many years. But this seems like a great move. Still need to replace Photoshop and then im out of Adobe subscription hell. Anyone have suggestions here? PS GIMP DOESN’T COUNT! Price of Resolve lite FREE

#5 Blackmagic Fusion lite. Another amazing free product from Blackmagic. I am moving to this from After Effects, years ago I ran Apples Shake program so I already know about node workflows, Fusion is MUCH more powerful than After effects and is a just a joy to experiment in. Price FREE.

#6 Blender. I don’t need 3d often, but when I do this is a no brainier. Price FREE

#7 Reason. Reason is my baby, I make almost all of my music in it, years ago I bought it for $400 I think and then upgrades are $130 so its not a very expensive. Price $400

I think that’s the main tools I use day in and day out to run the business and create content. My totally monthly price is basically $20 a month for Basecamp to run an entire business. Not bad, and it keeps costs WAY down!