Making your way as a freelancer – The micro-habits of highly successful freelancers
Katleen De Stobbelier, Professor in leadership and coaching, Vlerick Business School
About the session: In her talk, Prof. Dr. Katleen De Stobbeleir will share the latest research findings on how freelancers can navigate the challenges of the freelance economy.
She will give you evidence-based, practical steps to develop the skills and behaviours to survive and even thrive in this new world of work.
Attendees will also get free access to an exclusive specialized freelancing learning platform that Vlerick in partnership with the European Social Fund will launch at the end of 2022.
About the speaker: Katleen De Stobbelier is a Full Professor of leadership and coaching, partner and director of the Centre for Excellence in Leading Adaptive Organisations at Vlerick Business School. She has a doctor’s degree in Applied Economics from Ghent University and a Master’s in Labour Psychology, from Ghent University. On top of that, she serves as a board member at ABO Group and Officient.io.
Katleen’s research has featured in several renowned international journals – and she co-authored Making Your Way with Marion Debruyne, the Dean of Vlerick Business School. It’s a book about the (bumpy) road to success and happiness in life and work. In this inspiring book, they share their personal stories, stimulating testimonies and relevant scientific knowledge.
How to Start Freelancing – 7 Principles for Launching a Successful Freelance Career
Ermelinda “Era” Hajdari
Freelance marketing consultant and career coach.
About the session: New to freelancing? Considering choosing a freelance career? This session is for you! It is packed with practical tips, information and guidelines regarding uncertainty, pricing, finding customers and more to help you start your life as a freelancer successfully.
About the speaker: Era has guided dozens of professionals in the transfer from employee to freelancer. She has also extended experience herself as a freelancer as a jack of all trades in different sectors and has worked for start-ups, scale-ups, SMEs, corporations, NGO’s such as Unilever, BNP Paribas Fortis, ICI Paris XL, Mundo Digitalis, sCooledu and many more.
Currently, she helps companies with their flexible talent needs and coaches professionals to a freelance work lifestyle through her AngLe Agency.
Topic: Start2Freelance Arena
Setting up your freelance business
Ju Tung Chiu, Business Development Manager, Securex
About the session: Starting freelancer? Get information about the administrative and legal things to consider before starting. In Ju Tung’s session, she’ll share about the requirements to be able to start part or full-time, choose between self-proprietorship or a limited company, how to register your business, and arrange social security and legal aspects such as terms and conditions and GDPR.
About the speaker: Ju Tung Chiu works as a business development manager at enterprise counter and social security provider Securex. Securex helps people kickstart their careers as a freelancer with Start2Freelance, their department for services tailored to independent professionals.
– Do the Start2Freelance Check here to see if freelancing is something for you.
– Download the free Start2Freelance Guide to learn about working as a freelancer.
– Take part in a free online info session to learn about start-up formalities
– Sounding board? Make an appointment for a personal introductory chat with one of the Securex experts.
Topic: Start2Freelance Arena
Taxes for independents
Nicolas Quarré, co-founder Accountable
About the session: What are the must-do’s for your accounting & taxes when starting up? What do you need to put on your invoice? How do you charge VAT? What are the professional expenses you can deduct? Do you actually need an accountant? If so, how do you find one? Join this crash course in tax & accounting and get peace of mind about your taxes.
About the speaker: The session is given by Nicolas Quarré, the co-founder of Accountable. He is on a mission to make taxes and accounting straightforward for the independents.
With their mobile & web app, you can get all of your accounting under control, from managing receipts, creating personalized invoices & tracking payments to generating VAT returns & preparing tax returns.
Thanks to the connection to the bank account, the independent see at any point in time what they earn net & what they’ll owe to the tax office. With personalized tax tips & proactive customer service, admin & taxes are no longer a lonely task. Free version available. Learn more here.
Do you know what’s blocking your business growth?
Wouter Gheysen, Systemic Coach & Business Reinvention Facilitator
About the session: Did you know there is a huge chance you are blocking yourself? Previous experiences, family,… it all has a bigger impact than we expect. Many of us are not living up to our full potential. During this intro session, we’ll explore what’s currently blocking us to achieve our big hairy audacious goal(s) through a simple, interactive and truth-revealing exercise.
About the speaker: Wouter Gheysen is the CEO and founder of Out of Our Minds, a systemic business reinvention agency based in Belgium. As a business reinvention coach, he supports business leaders and management teams to build a future-ready organisation. Wouter has a background in engineering and economics and has worked as a consultant for a number of international consulting firms. Wouter also works as a business coach. He provides support to business leaders and management teams to build and develop future-ready organisations.
Topic: Professional and personal development for freelancers
Yesterday you said tomorrow – take action now to reach your goals
Andy Nijs, Business Mentor
About the session: Setting goals and strategies are useless until you know how to take action! Action is required to achieve what you want. In Andy’s session, you’ll learn how to set real goals and get tips on how to actually make them a reality, aka the Unstoppable plan.
You’ll also discover the fundamentals of the Build – Track – Reflect methodology
Oh, and you’ll immediately take action towards reaching your goals, already during the event!
About the speaker: Despite having no degree the passionate Andy Nijs has enjoyed a successful career working for top-tier international brands & companies across Europe. He started as a sales assistant at Zara and for the last 10 years of my corporate adventure, he worked in Human Resources, corporate Learning & Development & Talent Management. Today Andy is a business mentor for the bold and the go-getters. He helps entrepreneurs take action towards becoming unstoppable. He believes everything worth having happens outside the comfort zone. Growth. Success.
Topic: Professional and personal development for freelancers
Invest in index ETFs/funds: Simple and effective investing for financial freedom
Sebastien Aguilar, Financial independence ambassador
About the session: In this talk, Sebastien will teach you the simplest and most effective method to invest in for the long term. It is so efficient that your bank and financial advisors do not want you to know about this. Because they would go out of business. It is a simple method, developed by regular people for regular people and based on Nobel prize-winning research: index investing.
In this session, you will learn:
– How to invest to generate returns better than the vast majority of professional managers
– How to invest in less than 15 minutes per month (that is not a typo)
– How to plan for financial independence (with a bonus calculator tool so that you can do the math for your own situation)
About the speaker: Sebastien runs FIREBelgium.com, a community of personal finance enthusiasts who empower each other to build financial freedom in their lives.
Sebastien is not a financial professional, but he learned the hard way that you don’t need to take crazy risks nor pay expensive managers or banks to invest well in the stock market. Instead, you need common sense knowledge and a simple plan. After consistently saving and investing during his career he reached financial independence at 33. Today, he teaches regular people how to invest simply and effectively via index ETFs, a method proven by countless studies to generate better returns than most professional managers and that requires less than 15 min per month to manage.
Topic: Financial independence ambassador
X tips for social selling for freelancers
Jean-Francois Bodart, Sales coach & Mic Adam, LinkedIn trainer
About the session: Social selling is the process of researching, connecting, and interacting with prospects and customers on social media networks and face-to-face.
In this session by the very experienced duo you will discover many, not-so-common actionable tips that you can quickly implement for your social media profiles, content and sharing your expertise on social media and in person, with the purpose of building your credibility and network and ultimately getting more, and better assignments as a freelancer.
About the speakers: Jean-François Bodart helps freelancers craft their pitches, find their niche, generate leads, and engage with prospects based on his 20+ years of experience with business development and as a freelancer himself.
Mic Adam is a LinkedIn Trainer. He helps people and companies realize a true ROI on their social media investments and activities by focusing on closing the gap between social media and business when it comes to sales, marketing, recruitment, and employee ambassadorship.
Topic: Finding, getting and keeping clients successfully
What does the future look like for freelancers in Belgium?
Jeroen Franssen, Senior labour market expert & Lecturer of Agoria’s ‘Be The Change’ program
About the session: Insights into major trends and challenges that shape the current labour market and freelance landscape in Belgium and beyond. Find out about the skills in demand, hourly rate benchmarks and market evolution.
About the speaker: As a labor market analyst and founder of the Be The Change program, Jeroen Franssen draws out the impact of major changes – such as digitization or ‘green & sustainable’ – on the entire Belgian labour market. With a unique combination of quantitative and qualitative insights, he inspires policymakers, labour market and education actors, business leaders and people-oriented towards or in the labour market to look change in the eye and make the most out of it.
Getting Things Done
Maarten De Block, Multi passionate entrepreneur, investor and trainer
About the session: Do you want to work AND live more efficiently? Do you have more ambitions than time? This Getting Things Done intro session gives you tips on how to have more time, a better overview and an optimal work-life balance. Learn how to set the right priorities and start and finish projects efficiently. This way you can live your life with less stress. Start with the proven GTD methodology that millions of professionals worldwide use to organize their lives, work and aspirations.
About the speaker: Maarten is a multi-passionate, he’s an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, cryptocurrency enthusiast and basic income believer and a trainer in Drupal, PHP and Git.
Maarten has been using the Getting Things Done method for 6 years now. He gets more done in a day, has less stress, forgets much less and has enough time for family, friends, hobbies, and volunteer work,…
Because he himself is so convinced of the method, he wanted to pass on that knowledge and had himself certified as a Getting Things Done trainer at the end of 2019.
Insurance options and pension information
Roger Hatem, Business Insurance Specialist, Securex
About the session: What are the necessary insurances a freelancer needs? In this session, you’ll learn about options for
– Civil and professional liability
– Retirement
– Protection in case of loss of income due to illness, hospitalisation, death or accident.
About the speaker: The session is given by Roger Hatem who is a business insurance specialist at Securex, a one-stop-shop enterprise counter and social security provider. Securex helps people kickstart their careers as a freelancer with Start2Freelance, their department for services tailored to independent professionals, which now also includes insurances.
Freelancing in Belgium – best practices on how to manage and accelerate your career
Malik Azzouzi, Country Manager Malt Belgium.
About the session: During this workshop, Malt will share figures and insights on market trends and needs, and especially for Belgium. What are the most sought-after and/or in-demand profiles in Belgium, what is the cost of a freelancer compared to an employee for a company, and how to reconcile the two worlds? Malt will address these questions and provide answers based on strong expertise in the field. Over the past few years, Malt has carried out numerous studies on freelancing, leveraging our freelancers’ community throughout Europe (France, Germany, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands), to shed an exclusive light on the freelance model.
For almost a year now, Malt Belgium has been able to gather many inputs from freelancers, but also from companies regarding supply and demand.
About the speaker: Malik Azzouz has more than 15 years of experience in marketing and communication strategy. He started his career at DDB Brussels as Account Executive and then Manager. In 2013, Malik Azzouzi became Marketing Manager at McDonald’s Belgium before joining the team that opened the Belgian office of Twitter as Account Director in 2015. This experience led him to launch VICE. From 2019 to 2022, he returned to the agency world as a digital strategy consultant, first at Wunderman Thompson and then at Mountainview Agency. In 2022, Malik Azzouzi joined Malt as Country Manager for Belgium.