At IM Spring Break, the talk from attendees that hold a W-2 is that they want to be a freelancer. (What’s a W-2? An employee).

Do you want to be a Freelancer or an Entrepreneur? Big difference. A freelancer is, in the words of E-Myth, a Technician. He trades hours for money and has traded in his W-2 to have a job in his own business. An Entrepreneur is going to move beyond being a Technician, outsource work, manage projects and people, and some day convert that leverage for a beach location.

What freelancers forget is that as a W-2, other departments/employees handle customer service, IT, HR, sales, accounts receivable, admin tasks, payroll, etc. As a freelancer, YOU will be handling ALL of that stuff. It means you will spend about 35-45% of your time doing anything BUT those tasks you love. That becomes a bummer.

Straddling the W-2 means that you have a full-time job but you are taking in some freelance work until you can get enough of a base of work to leave your W-2.

How can you market your services? Many ways: blogging, slideshare.net, freelance sites (guru.com, ifreelance, elance.com, odesk), speaking, webinars, and other ways. Get started and see what happens.

One last hint: set up an LLC or S-Corp so that your payments go to a corporate entity and you get some tax benefits. A few other resources: your CPA (you have one right?), a financial planner, corporate lawyer, Board of Advisors, SCORE, and a Mentor). Good luck!

In this article from the Seattle PI, Leaders shouldn’t be silent in tough times.

1. Wise leaders understand that emotions are contagious.
2. Discuss relevant matters openly and appropriately.
3. Keep your people connected – Face-to-Face not all electronic.
4. Reduce physical and electronic clutter.
5. Offer skill development, coaching support and training for your people.

Overall, just manage by walking around and connecting with your employees. Be authentic and transparent if you can.

On LinkedIn Answers today, there was a discussion about whether ROI discussions matter in sales in this economic situation. This was a good answer from Thomas Biggs.

As a former CFO of a billion dollar organization a positive ROI was necessary to get my support. To get my support a project had to have the following criteria:

1. Within the scope of our existing priorities;
2. A solid business plan;
3. A plan for a annual retroactive review to assure that the project is meeting the objectives.
4. A champion that I could hold accountable for the project.
5. A well vetted, risk adjusted ROI, that was based on reasonable and supportable assumptions.

In times like this, it is even more important to do thorough ROIs on all projects. By thorough, I mean the inclusion of a risk factor and well vetted facts and assumptions. With funds being limited, it is important that they be spent on those projects which provide the best return. [Editor: And advance overall goals and values of the organization].

As it relates to CapEx or OpEx, the decision to use either should be part of the ROI. If the project has a very positive ROI and the company has the funding to support the project, than the project should move forward.

Making decisions based on sound business practices is the key to long term success. An ROI analysis is a very sound business practice. As a result I was always willing to support projects that met the above criteria.

Another answer came from Chip Nickolett:

Not only are organizations being forced to do more with less, timelines for projects have been shortened to have a more immediate and measurable business impact. Expenditures that don’t make an immediate impact (i.e., within 12 months) will be tough to get approved, unless it is essential and in-line with the strategic plan for that business. ROI and TCO are more important than ever in this economy since they focus on both CapEx and OpEx, and have a direct impact on profitability.

[Editor: That's sound business advice].