The Freelance Mix: Balancing Time, Money, and Results
Posted January 13, 2009 in Business, How-To
A few weeks ago one of our authors, Jacob Cass, wrote an excellent article about the Fast, Good, and Cheap pricing method. The article points out that your clients can only expect two of those things, and can’t have all three.
This week, I want to talk about the other side of that equation — actually running your business, managing your resources, and doing the client work. Maintaining balance in all of this can be very difficult.
We have to choose where we allocate our time and money. We also have to account for that unsung hero — skill. All of these factors influence the results that we can offer to our customers, the prices we can charge, and even determine how our work will stack up against another freelancer or business.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the individual factors, different ways of organizing your resources, and how to make the most out of the situation.
Parts of the Freelance Mix
There are three main factors to consider when allocating your resources. Here’s a brief description of each:
Time
Perhaps the most precious resource of them all, time is one of the biggest limiting factors for freelancers. With more time in a day, you could take on more work, make more money, improve your abilities, and life would generally be good. Of course, there are only 24 hours, and some of that needs to be sleep :-)
Money
A close second behind time, money is again a big limiting factor for freelancers. If everyone had enough money, there would be no need to work at all hours trying to fit in more client projects. Money is a counterpoint to time — usually if you want to save time doing something, you have to spend money (and vice-versa).
Skill
Skill is another resource influencing your freelance business, one that may not be talked about quite as much, but is important nonetheless. A more skilled freelancer can do the same quality work in less time, thus making more money. Keep in mind that skill is not an absolute factor: investing time, and possibly money, can increase your skill level and change the whole equation.
The End Result: Quality, Cost, and Speed
Out of this mix comes the the final part of the equation: results.
Results are not only the product you deliver to the customer, but also the speed at which you can complete projects, and the cost involved in their completion (and therefore the customer’s cost as well). The results of this mix determine what type of business you’ll be running (budget shop or premium quality?) as well as the overall success of your freelance business.
The Right Mixture
While there is no right mixture, there are a few things that can make your life significantly easier. For instance, investing time and money into your skill level is almost always worthwhile.
Time and money are both limited resources, ones that are difficult to change, but your skill level is something that you can increase now and benefit from far into the future. It will take an upfront investment, usually time spent learning, but in the end it will improve the caliber of your work and increase the amount you can charge.
Another important consideration is the amount of time and money you take out of your business. You’ll certainly have to take some money and time away from the business, in order to relax and support your lifestyle, but it can be very hard to succeed if you take too much. This is often apparent when a freelancer is just starting out and barely making enough to pay the bills — it is much more difficult to grow when you need to spend every ounce of money coming into your business.
A Little Secret…
There’s a secret that allows you to break some of the rules of this equation, and it lies with a little word called leverage. Leverage means that time doesn’t always have to equal money, and you can sometimes get more resources to use than you should be able to (according to this equation).
The idea is to enter into situations where your time or efforts are multiplied, that way you can benefit from more time than you had to put in personally. An example of this is taking on a big project and then hiring a team to handle most of the work. You get paid for managing the project, and delivering the results, but you aren’t actually responsible for putting in all of the hours. If you do that frequently, you can get to a point where you make a significant amount of money while spending very little time.
There are some other forms of leverage that you can use as a freelancer, but I’m going to save the details of them for the new Unlimited Freelancer eBook. It’s going on sale in less than 24 hours.
Your Thoughts?
Personal experience is everything for freelancers, and there are never two ways to look at a situation. How have you seen these concepts applied in your business? Do you struggle balancing your time, money, and results? What recommendations do you have for other freelancers?
Related posts:
- What To Do With Dirty Money
- Maximizing Results As A Way Of Thinking
- How To Set Up Your Wacom for Awesome Results
- How To Weather The Storm By Making Your Money Work For You
- 6 Easy Ways Freelancers Can Save Money
About the author: Mason Hipp is a designer, entrepreneur, and writer. He is co-author of the Book The Unlimited Freelancer, and has just recently launched a collection of premium graphic resources for web designers called MediaLoot. Follow him on twitter @MasonHipp
The Unlimited Freelancer is Now Only $19
Unleash the true potential of your business. Get The Unlimited Freelancer and start transforming your freelance business,
now only $19.
Try searching "Getting Clients" or "Productivity"
Free Report
Sign up for our product discount list to get a free copy of Why Some Freelancers Thrive and Others Barely Survive. You can unsubscribe anytime.
Forum Discussions
Popular Articles
- SEO Techniques All Top Websites Should Use
- When a Client Can't Afford You: Why It's Still Better to Bid High
- How To Stop Scrambling For Clients And Get A Steady Stream Of Paying Gigs
- A Simple Way To Stop Clients From Rejecting Your Proposals
- 3 Reasons Your Rates Are Still Low (And How To Start Raising Them)
10 Comments
Easton Ellsworth
January 13th, 2009 at 10:16 amGod post, Mason. Retweeted it. Part of what I advise people to do with blogging strategy is to start by carefully considering their time. So much of what we do in life boils down to making decisions about time.
I also think it’s possible for some freelancers to emphasize one of these variables over the others and get more of a certain kind of business that way. It’s good to consider which one your target audience cares about. For example, it may be that they’re in no hurry, but they just want the job done right – thus, skill matters more than time or money.
Max
January 13th, 2009 at 10:19 amExcellent article in my opinion – seems like the ebook could be really interesting to read.
I usually have to struggle with the time available each day – while I’m satisfied with money and skill most of the time it’s definitely hard to find a balance between work and regular life.
The internet can be just as seductive as a street with flashing neon lights everywhere and you simply don’t know what to look at first. There’s always a client you could try to get, some tasks to do, eMails to answer or blogs to read, but sometimes it makes sense to just leave the office and to do something else. My solution for this problem actually is my girlfriend who takes me away when she thinks it’s enough and this works very well.
Besides that it could be a good idea to use one day or maybe even just a couple of hours a week solely for learning or business related tasks in order to improve skills and increase the income in the long run.
Jamie
January 13th, 2009 at 3:14 pmSkills in the sense described in this article are quintessential.
It’s like a spiral, once you get more, it frees up more time and resources that you can then reinvest to further your skills even more, which in return frees up even more time and resources, and so the (very positive) spiral continues..
The hard part is getting through the first couple of rounds. They’re the hardest to get through and also the ones you can least you afford to rest in between.
Jennifer
January 13th, 2009 at 5:42 pmThis article could not be more timely in my life. I just started successfully freelancing part time on top of my day job and I’ve been having a hard time allocating specific amounts of time to different areas of my ‘small business’. This was truly helpful!
Mason Hipp
January 13th, 2009 at 5:58 pmHey everyone, thanks for the positive comments!
@Easton — That’s a very good point. Depending on which of these you focus on, you’ll end up with different results (not necessarily better or worse).
@Max — Thanks! I think if you like this article you’ll love the ebook, it’s this and a lot more. And yea, the internet is definitely way too seductive.
@Jamie — Bingo. You hit the nail on the head, once you invest in yourself the entire process is easier. Of course, like you said, the beginning can be difficult.
@Jennifer — Congrats! Successfully freelancing part-time is a step in the right direction. And if you learn to handle your time well, you’ll be way ahead of a lot of us :-)
charissa
January 14th, 2009 at 4:37 amI agree on leveraging. I started as a full time freelance for about 6 months only and found it very exciting at first. As time goes by, when more projects keep on coming, I could not handle them anymore. That gave me an idea ‘Why not try leveraging?’. Get more projects, hire people to work for you, focus on project management. Nonetheless, you are making a significant amount of money while spending very little time. But another question is ‘What should I do with my extra time?’. Investing time on increasing skill level including project management. And I found it a great investment.
James Chartrand - Men with Pens
January 14th, 2009 at 6:47 amWell, I can’t complain, because I think I have the leverage thing down pat.. ;)
I like the way you mention it’s very important to put money back into your business. I made some investments this year into various areas of the business and there were returns from that, either in more time or more money.
And time is money, is it not?
Amber Weinberg
January 16th, 2009 at 11:19 pmGreat tips. I’ve always heard:
You can be cheap and fast but not good
You can be fast and good but not cheap
You can be cheap and good but not fast.
It’s always something freelancers are trying to figure out.
Jonathan Patterson
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:28 amI look at my overall growth as non-linear. Sometimes I am heavy on designing things while other times I focus on skill. It’s not cut-and-dry, your solution will be as individual as you are.
Trackbacks