How Defining Your Ideal Project Can Improve Your Freelancing Business
Posted November 11, 2010 in How-To
Have you ever gotten one of those projects that just sets your teeth on edge?
You know the kind I mean–the kind of project that you dread waking up to do, but feel obligated to complete since you committed to doing it.
I think every freelancer struggles with this problem, sooner or later. Let’s face it, some of those unpleasant projects pay pretty well, but they sure can suck some of the joy out of freelancing.
If you’d taken the time to define your ideal project up front, you might have been able to avoid some of those dreadful projects–or at least been able to negotiate better project terms for yourself.
In this post, I’ll describe how you can improve your freelancing business by avoiding the projects that you dread. In short, I’ll explain how to define your ideal project.
Why You Should Define Your Ideal Project
We’ve already explained the importance of developing an ideal client profile. Your ideal client profile helps you determine who you want to work with, while your ideal project describes what you want to work on.
If you don’t really know or haven’t thought about the types of projects that you prefer, odds are that you aren’t going to get offered the projects you really like. However, if you define your ideal project, then you can target that sort of work with your marketing. It also provides a standard that you can use to evaluate new projects before you accept them.
6 Questions to Ask Yourself
In order to define your ideal project, you need to first answer a few questions about what’s really important to you. It’s important to be totally honest, since nobody will see these answers but you (and if you fudge on these answers, you will only hurt your chances of finding work you really love).
Try to picture the attributes of a project that would most make you look forward to doing it. Here are some questions to answer:
- What type of work do I enjoy the most?
- How important to me is it that I am allowed to show my creativity?
- What type of deadlines do I work best under?
- How comfortable am with trying new things on a project?
- Do I prefer to always receive full credit for my work?
- Am I okay with working as part of a team, or do I prefer to work alone?
Of course, you can probably think of a few additional questions to help you define your ideal project.
My Ideal Project
When I look at the questions above, I learn that, first and foremost, my ideal project involves writing or editing–preferrably in one of my three specialties: commercial copywriting, technical writing/creating curriculum, blogging.
While I enjoy creative projects, I’m equally at home with structured projects such as such as creating online help systems or study guides.
I’m definitely not a rush job kind of person. If you want something written within a few hours, the project is probably not ideal for me (although I try to help with those when I can). Usually, I prefer larger projects with longer deadlines or small projects with recurring deadlines (such as three articles a week). This allows me maximum control of my time, which is very important to me.
I also love learning new things, but it’s not a necessity when it comes to project work. In fact, learning new things is something that I do on my own constantly anyway.
As far as credit goes, I won’t say that I don’t enjoy seeing my name on a published piece. However, I’m certainly used to and okay with corporate publishing, which typically doesn’t recognize the individual writer.
I’m also fairly flexible about working with a team.
Since I know all of these things about my ideal project, I can more effectively evaluate new opportunities to determine whether they are the best fit for me.
What If There’s a Mismatch?
Of course, not every gig will fit your ideal project perfectly. However, knowing what aspects of a project challenge and excite you can help you determine whether or not you should accept an opportunity and may even influence what you decide to charge.
A project can also be a mismatch if you have to choose between your ideal project and your ideal client. For example, what should you do if your ideal client offers you a less than ideal project? Or, similarly, what happens when you are offered your ideal project, but the client is someone you’d rather not work with?
Of course, every freelancer will make their own decision in such circumstances.
For me, it depends on how far off the mismatch is. If an ideal client is offering me a less than ideal job, but the job is still something I’d be comfortable doing, I may take it anyway to get my foot in the door with that client. On the other hand, if the work is ideal, but I know that I’d be miserable working for a particular organization I may decide not to accept it.
What About You?
Describe your ideal project in the comments.
Image by Symic
Related posts:
- How to Use Your Ideal Client Profile to Strengthen Your Business
- The Creative Brief: Improve Your Project Workflow
- Five Useful Ways Dropbox Can Improve Your Business
- Five Easy Ways to Improve Yourself and Your Business
- Business Card Design Project Walkthrough
About the author: Laura Spencer is a freelance writer from North Central Texas with over 20 years of professional business writing experience. If you liked this post, then you may also enjoy Laura’s blog about her freelance writing experiences, WritingThoughts. Laura is also on Google+.
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30 Comments
Paul Jacobs
November 11th, 2010 at 8:55 amI had one such project where it was handed to me incomplete and was made in a such an unprofessional fashion with terrible HTML coding, and the SQL was written almost entirely on the server. Having committed to the project I had to practically start from a fresh, rewriting the code whilst maintaining the site look and feel. Learning the logic of some else is a nightmare as everyone has a different way at looking at a problem.
Ensure when you get such a project that you get a comprehensive handover, to ensure you understand the full inner workings of the site, or you will land yourself in big problems.
Trust me, I learned this from experience.
Vale_theBlogger
November 11th, 2010 at 9:53 amWhat I love about Freelance jobs is that you can decide who to work for and what to work on. It’s something that I’m experiencing right now.
My ideal projects require my creativity and the use of the internet!
Not so unusual for a Graphics Designer!
Working in a group is great when you need people with different skills to realize a project, but I find that I can give the best of myself when alone.
I take my time to think about the best solutions, how to reach the audience and get the client satisfied.
Chris @ SyracuseCS
November 11th, 2010 at 10:51 amGreat post Laura! As all of us know, freelancing can be a pretty tough business and in order to stay in business we can’t always work on our most ideal and favorite projects. But, as you said it’s good to have your ideal project in mind and always aim to get that sort of work. Maybe you could make a scale of 1-10 for your questions and others. It might not come out to 100% when you add it all up, but maybe you would still want to take the project if it had 70% of what your ideal project would be. Instead of disliking the whole project, focus on the items you like and if you have to outsource the rest or get some help. Chances are someone else will really like that parts that you hate.
My ideal project would have to be personal projects, even though they aren’t a paying gig right away you really can stretch your creativity and skills. I love long, challenging, complex projects. The ones that you really have to sit and plan out.
As Paul stated above, I hate getting half finished project with horrible work. The client/customer isn’t happy about when you have to tell them it needs to be scrapped and started over, but it usually takes longer to learn what was done, figure out how to fix it, and move forward.
-Chris
Laura Spencer
November 11th, 2010 at 11:15 amPaul Jacobs, Vale_theBlogger, Chris @ SyracuseCS
Great, thoughtful comments. Thank you! :)
Paul–That doesn’t sound like fun. It’s never pretty, picking up the pieces after someone else.
Vale, It sounds like you’ve got a good understanding of what your ideal project is and have been able to find them. :) That’s great!
Chris–Excellent point! Having an ideal project and an ideal client in mind doesn’t mean you won’t do anything else. However, they are excellent tools to use when evaluating offers and planning your marketing campaign.
Sponsi
November 11th, 2010 at 11:19 amI am currently on a bit new course in my life – more into web and graphics (I used to be a K12 English teacher) – and I must say that unprofessionalism (even though I’m not really educated in strategies, webdesign, etc. but have like 10 years of experience) is so annoying and so frequent it just makes me sick with what people do (or rather what they don’t do) and what they expect. No plan, no ideas, just “it needs to be done” and then I say “no no no – wait, wait, wait… what do you want to achieve, what do you want within the project” and I start my normal routine in approaching projects. Unfortunately, Poland is going through a crisis (which is supposed to have finished in the West, according to media, and they might be right) and a lot of people are horrified because they lose money, don’t have customers, etc. Everything that is made in complete chaos, without essential planning, with mistakes commited in the past etc. I hate such work and I said to myself in June “I don’t want this” and I’ve changed some things here and there. I too have my own “points” when it comes to a dream project. First of all – no chaos, only careful planning. Then money – if you don’t want to pay, there is no work. Then come respect towards me, my customers, and my work – I underline such basic things very often (in an appendix to my offers, where I explain that I use legal software, educate myself constantly, etc.). Well… I’m starting to think about going to the UK because I’m dreaming of more professionalism in my everyday life (private and work)…
Laura Spencer
November 11th, 2010 at 11:43 amSponsi, Wow! I don’t even know where to begin. It DOES sound like you are having a rough time through no fault of your own. Your story highlights the impact local economy can have on a business. I hope that things turn around for you soon.
Anita
November 11th, 2010 at 4:40 pmI’m a translator, and, simple as it may be, my ideal project is one that will be needed and appreciated. I don’t like translating just because someone said that there needs to be a translation, I want the translation to be a means of communication, of conveying information. I want it to be helpful in attracting business partners or investment.
My favorite projects have been translating correspondence, technical designs, geological surveys, business plans for companies creating jobs and added value, research papers… This is needed, this is useful!
Yes, the clients are small, yes, the money may not be as good or consistent as I’d like to, but that’s what I want to do, and I’m working on expanding my ‘base of operations’ :)
Cosmin Lupu
November 11th, 2010 at 5:09 pmI think that at first, as a beginner, you have to accept any job you can get. This is very helpful because you can get those much needed clients testimonials. I think those weigh pretty much in a new clients decision to hire you.
Stephanie
November 11th, 2010 at 9:52 pmInteresting post Laura! My ideal project is usually writing product descriptions for online stores, particularly those selling products I’m very much interested in like designer bags, clothes, books, and the like. I also find blogging about my favorite topics and writing reviews about different websites fun as well!
From the looks of it, you can tell that I’d like to work on projects that combine information, creativity, and passion all together. Hopefully I’ll meet a client or two who would like me to handle these types of projects in the future. :)
Richard
November 12th, 2010 at 1:24 amDefining Your Ideal Project is like searching for the perfect brief, it just doesn’t happen, so stop searching for it. every job occurs problems you wish you never had and i guess that’s why each design is in the industry in the first place, as we’re problem solvers.
Create My Mind Movie
November 12th, 2010 at 4:11 amI really enjoyed this post, because I think its so important to define what is it that you really want, so you just don’t get the scraps out of life. How many times have we actually sat down and thought, what WOULD be the ideal project/situation for me.
I think a lot of the times, it is difficult to complete a project which delves into one of our fears (maybe we are not sure we can complete it effectively or that it doesn’t play to our strengths) or is just not aligned with what our values are at the time. Making sure to chunk things down and visualise the end process can help this area.
I make sure the first the I do in the morning is to visualise either by meditation or watching my digital vision board (my mind movie) because it helps to refocus me on what I do want, how I do want to feel and ultimately what I want to attract.
Thanks for the great tips =)
benedetta.s
November 12th, 2010 at 8:10 amI think it’s always good when you can find ideal clients or ideal projects but it’s not too easy to find them in reality. Obviously if a freelancer knows what he really wants it’s much easier. Probably to ask what a ideal project is it’s a good starting point. Anyway your article is very interesting and you gave us good advices. Thanks!
Laura Spencer
November 12th, 2010 at 10:30 amGreat comments everybody!
Remember, I’m not advising folks to only accept their ideal gigs. As I said in the post, “Of course, not every gig will fit your ideal project perfectly.”
However, I think it’s important to understand which projects you enjoy and which you don’t. While you may not be able to get your ideal gig, you can move a little closer to it by defining your ideal project.
Adrienne
November 14th, 2010 at 4:19 pmMore than the ideal project, I am always on the look out for the ideal client. I have learned that ultimately its the client’s personality and communication skills that makes a project ideal.
Sure, a project that is going to challenge me and I am given enough time to build is ideal. If the client can’t communicate his needs to me until after he sees something completed, or lacks the responsibility to deliver requirements (or payments!) in a timely manner, it’s not worth my time.
Over the years, I have learned to see these red flags early on. Being a freelancer, I have the luxury to turn a project down if I want, and have done this on more than one occasion.
Caitlin Kelly
November 14th, 2010 at 7:21 pmInteresting post — especially in a recession — to remind us we need to keep aiming high(er) not just taking whatever pays the bills.
I recently had an assignment that fell into my lap (rare but nice) that reminded what I like to be able to combine: writing in my own voice (it was a paid set of blog posts for a major commercial client); advocating on behalf of a cause I believe in; helping others through my writing — and very good pay! That’s a perfect combo for me.
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