Is the title clickbaity? Yes, because we need everyone's attention here:
Turnover Tax is a type of tax that almost all freelance creatives qualify for.
As long as you stay under a R1 million in turnover, you will pay a ludicrously low tax rate.
Changing to Turnover Tax has been life-changing for Lucas and me, and we want to share this knowledge with you.
To that end, we've interviewed our tax guy, Michael Rushby of GalbraithRushby, about the ins and outs of Turnover Tax. How to work out if you qualify, what you have to reports (sooo much simpler than normal tax), and how much you'll save.
If you are a freelancer and you're not on Turnover Tax, do yourself a favour and listen to this episode. If you want to do someone you know a favour, please spread the word by sharing the episode link. Creatives are struggling out there. If there's a way to pay less tax, grab it!

Full disclosure: In a stunning display of business savvy, we have worked out a deal with Michael (our tax guy in case your reading comprehension is poor). For every new Turnover Tax client his practice gets, we get an astonishingly token finders' fee. If thing go really well, we may be able to fill up our cars. Once.

So if you want to talk to Mike (I'm not sure we're on a Mike basis yet, but it makes him seem approachable, right?) just follow this link and get in touch with him. Mention the interview if you remember. 👍

We've been on a break for about a YEAR, but we're back for Season 2, starting with a long-overdue catchup with Tessa Kleingeld, owner and admin of The Resource and The Resource Creative Forum.

Tessa catches us up with what's been going on in the creative freelancing world, the changes and trends she's been seeing in the groups, and the recently activated mentorship programme.

She also gives us some great advice (some of it quite sobering) about building a community, especially on Facebook. What it takes, how it works, and what you can expect to get out of it (because if you put years of work into building something and expect no return on it, you're a better person than I am).

Finally, I'll be using some of Tessa's tips as I slowly build The Podcasting Guild of South Africa, a Facebook group for South African podcasts to chat, share information and resources, and generally do what we can to accelerate podcasting to in South Africa.

If you're into podcasting, or if you're in a parallel discipline like audio engineering, please feel free to join the group and say hi.

We're very excited to be back for a brand new year and a brand new episode of the The Resourcecast.
In this episode we chat to Gabriele Gabba of 1on1artschool.com, an innovative online illustration and art school with a model we've never seen before.
Gabriele has 10 years of experience in art and animation for game and animated movie development, and he shares his insight into the industry :

• How the industry works.
• How to shut out the world and go into the "Dragonball Z gravity chamber" to rapidly improve your skills.
• Why diplomas and other certifications are almost entirely unnecessary to get work.
• The unnecessary crime of student debt.
• Terrifying yourself into action by putting your savings on the line to improve your skills.
• Taking a day for self-enrichment, and his journalling habit.
• AND MUCH MORE.

Note: In the conversation, Lucas recommends the book "The Visual MBA" by Jason Barron. Check it out.

In our 18th episode of The Resourecast we talk to director Porteus Xandau. Porteus is a commercials director working with agencies and brands, and is represented by Carbon Films.

Porteus gives us some insight into the difficulties production companies have been facing in the pandemic, as well as some of the solutions they're working on. He also covers his journey to directing, which has zig-zagged across graphic design and acting in the 2012 production of Dredd.

Sidenote: We're heading for our 20th episode right now, at which point we believe we'll have covered a lot of ground. After two seasons of ten episodes, we'll be putting The Resourcecast onto the backburner to pursue new podcasting projects. I'll keep paying for the podcast to stay live because I think the content is evergreen, but we'll only post new episodes when we've got something important or particularly awesome to cover.

Hope everyone out there is safe and getting some damn work!

Big episode here. Huge. Enormous. I know you hate and fear tax. It is that monster in that Bird Box movie where if you look at it, it kills you.
That's not the case. Our guest, Julian Brookstone, breaks tax down into simple language and will make the whole thing seem manageable.
Here's Julian's article on tax.
And here are some detailed timings to help if you want answers to a specific question:

• 5:40 - We start getting into it - What’s your perception of the way most creative freelancers see their taxes?
• 8:45 - Where do I get started?
• 10:35 - I have an account. Now what?
• 12:40 - What expenses can I claim?
• 13:40 - How do you keep track of expenses?
• 17:10 - How Jon got his taxes sorted out
• 19:37 - What is provisional tax?
• 27:20 - Estimating your income during the pandemic
• 36:20 - Is deducting petrol and office space worth it?
• 53:30 - What is turnover tax and is it worth it? (spoilers - it’s not worth it for most creative freelancers, so skip this bit if you’re optimising your listen)
• 60:41 - Are tax dates shifting due to Covid? (There are changes, but they probably won’t affect you)
• 1:03:25 - How does income from overseas clients work with tax, and are transfer platform fees deductible? (They are)
• 1:11:31 - Let’s summarise
• 1:15:21 - Oh no, we forgot about PAYE!
• 1:18:50 - Wrap-up and where to find Julian

"You are watching people go through withdrawal from the emotional addiction to the myth of certainty." - Ashley C. Ford / @iSmashFizzle

In this episode we talk to Amanda Rykaart, a registered trauma counsellor with 20 years of experience.
In this conversation we talk about:

• How the pandemic is different from normal trauma, in that we can see that the worst is yet to come, and we have to watch it happen in slow motion.
• How president Ramaphosa became a father figure to us, only to be undermined by the rest of his government, dealing a major blow to our sense of safety and hope for the future.
• How that level 4 lockdown has led to anger, bitterness and outrage on social media - a coping mechanism for many.
• How creative freelancers and others should manage their expectations for both the quantity and quality of their output, and give themselves a break when necessary.
• How by facing COVID-19, we are facing our own mortality, and that's no small thing.

Finally, we talk through some effective self-care strategies for managing your anxiety and stress during this time.
I think what I learned from this talk from Amanda is that although there is no silver bullet to escape the trauma we're in right now, and no one has the answers, we are all in this together, and one thing we CAN do is try to be empathetic with those around us.
Everyone is scared, and everyone deals with fear differently. Sometimes with aggression, sometimes with outrage, sometime by shutting down and turning inward. Let's try to be even more understanding during this time.

Resources:
Amanda's article on Therapy Route
If you'd like to connect with Amanda, you can find her on LinkedIn or Facebook, or you can email her at arcounselling@iafrica.com

In this episode we chat to Brandt Botes, a well-known and highly-respected designer who is the co-owner of Studio Botes with his wife, Katherine. He is also currently the Design Creative Director at OFyt in Cape Town.
In this episode, he takes us through his of big advice, gathered from other creative directors like Garth Walker and Ross Chowles, as well as Design Indaba speakers Michael Beirut, Marian Bantjes, and Tim Sutherland. Ten years ago, Brandt put that advice into a stop-motion video called Going Solo, which you can watch on Vimeo.
Here, for reference, is his ten-point plan to being awesome:

1. Find clients who treat you as a partner rather than a supplier
2. Take risks now.
3. Talk about your client's problems, not your own work.
4. Over-deliver.
5. Research.
6. Be enthusiastic.
7. Don't work for free.
8. Trust your intuition.
9. Don't be a dick.
10. Say no sometimes.

Bonus point: work hard

This is a slightly longer episode, but boy is it worth a listen.
We chat to Alex Searle and Edward Fisher, two South Africans who found so much work overseas that they ended up moving there.
Alex is a video content producer and strategist living in Valencia, Spain. His regular vlogs leverage LinkedIn's content-friendly algorithm to get him high levels of engagement and reach on the platform.
Edward is the commercial director of a software company and entrepreneur, specialising in B2B commercial growth.

We talk to them about playing the long game with a content strategy that builds your reputation and relationships, as well as a more focused direct marketing plan that Edward breaks down for us, step by step.

You'll learn how to use LinkedIn to identify the clients you want to work with, and how to contact them on any platform OTHER than LinkedIn.

We talk about putting more work into fewer prospects, not falling prey to the fear that drives us to looks for work anywhere you can get it, and we get a couple of tips for prospecting in the UK in particular: try up-and-coming cities other than London, and charge the right amount (not too much, not too little).
Near the end of the chat we talk about money, and how to get paid. I've seen some conversations about this on the forum, and most people seem to say that Paypal is a bit too expensive. A few people speak highly of Transferwise, so consider looking at them as an option.