Freelancefolder

Ahh! Those Slow Months!

Posted September 20, 2007 in Business, Lifestyle

Tweet

Unless you’re some kind of super-hero (or should I say, “freelancer extraordinaire“), chances are you’ll find yourself without a gig for a week (or a month) at some point in your freelance career. It happens, it’s not fun, but there are things you can do to actually take advantage of the slow weeks/months and still make ends meet.

You know, those times when you simply cannot find a contract, you call everyone on your contact list and no one has work for you. You then ask your friends, your family, your neighbors, and still no gig. Yeah, I know…

Here are some simple (or not) things you can do that might help, feel free to share your own tips and tricks with us! :)

Take Well-Deserved Vacation

If you can afford it, do it, go on vacation, take some time off to recharge those batteries. And come back with a fresh perspective. Take some time to analyze your network. Are you networking with the right people, what can you do to expand your network, where can you find more gigs?

Usually when I go on vacation, it’s to do “something else”, other than work, but inevitably I end up thinking about work, and where I could find more contracts, make more money, ways to expand my network. It’s when I,m on vacation that I have time to actually think about this stuff. Don’t have to worry about anything, no deadlines, no clients. A good time to find answers, and then come back stronger (that’s what vacations are for anyway).

Passive Income Streams

Of course, a good way to ensure you still get some money even in the slow weeks/months, is to create passive income streams. This is definitely not hard to do. Whether you’re a photographer, web designer, writer, there is no reason why you shouldn’t invest some time in creating passive revenue streams.

This has to be planned way before those slow weeks (which can turn into months), best thing would be to start right now if you haven’t already (you’ll be happy you did). It is fairly easy to setup a website and sell products thought that site.

Say you are a web-designer, why not create 10 or more website templates, put them for sale (non-exclusive licence), for maybe around $75 each, and start marketing that right away. When you get one of those slow weeks, you’ll be more than happy to have all that already making money for you. But that’s just an example, it’s still quite a lot of work. But it’s worth it.

Start A Blog?

Some will say starting a blog isn’t such a good idea, as it can lower your productivity, because you have to manage it, write articles, promote the blog, network and all (and some people simply don’t like to write that much). Well, honestly, I get most of my gigs through my blogs.

One of the reason you may experience a slow week may be because your network isn’t big enough, you need more contacts, network with like-minded people. Those are great reasons to start a blog. ;)

Partner Up

You certainly already know many people that are working in the same field as you (or in a completely different field). Why not partner up, and join forces? “You help me, I help you” type of thing.

I actually do this quite a lot. A good friend of mine is a web-designer, but he hates to write articles and all, so that’s where I come in. He will design, then I write articles and add content, and we share the profits.

It’s quite simple, you’re good at something, but you have no idea how to do this and that, well there is certainly someone somewhere who’s in the exact same situation as you, but that person might have other strengths than you. Partner-up! And when the slow months arrive, you’ll certainly have work.

Work On Your Own Projects

What a better time to work on your own projects? You have no gigs, no one needs your services right now. Take some time to work on your own stuff, your website, your own ebook/book. You know, those projects you haven’t had time to work on (cause you were busy dealing with customers).

It may not get you any money right away, but at least you’re working on something (writing a book can definitely lead to more income).

Stop Looking

When we focus too much, we tend not to see what’s right in front of us. If you simply stop looking for contracts and call your contacts (stop bugging them, they won’t hire you), there is a definite possibility you will end up finding new clients. Sometimes we’re just trying too hard, stop looking and maybe you’ll have “the idea”, or you’ll do something different, you’ll go somewhere, and voila! A new contact and potentially a new customer!

What About You?

What do you usually do when you have no contracts and no one has work for you, and you’ve been trying damn hard to find clients/gigs? What’s your “secret“, how do you take advantage of those times when it’s going a little slow?

Jon

No related posts.