Who’s Really In Control Of Your Freelance Business?
Posted August 22, 2008 in Business, Inspiration, Lifestyle 13 Comments »
The ideal of freelancing is to be your own boss, to set your own schedule, manage your own creativity and be responsible for your own budget. Sometimes though, the freelance life seems to do the opposite — you end up working for multiple bosses who don’t care about your personal world, yet still want to micro-manage your creative work.
At the end of the day, it can feel like you don’t really run your own business — your business runs you.
Freelancing comes in many forms and sizes, whether you’re a writer, designer or you just like to sell knitted scarves on eBay. Whatever you do, you’ll have to make some compromises, but you’ll be happiest if you can find ways to take advantage of your flexibility and freedom.
Here are some tips for transforming your job from a worker bee’s cube to the desk of the CEO:
1. Make Time for Yourself
Working solo offers unique perks that keep life exciting and drawbacks that can make you want to run back to that safe little cubicle – you know, the one you can leave behind at the end of the day.
The days I appreciate freelancing the most are when I’m seizing control of my schedule or my work environment. It feels exhilarating to make time for an afternoon bike ride, cook a meal for friends or just sit in the park with my laptop while I’m working.
Find one or two ways to personalize your work schedule or interrupt the routine every day, to make your time uniquely your own.
2. Make Social Time
The work-from-home lifestyle is glamorous when you can dance naked around your living room on your break, but it can be depressing when you can’t turn to your coworker and complain about that late night you had and how much work you have to swallow today.
The bright side is you’re not forced to sit around an office with people you barely know all day, and you don’t have the constant interruptions. Instead, you can concentrate on work when you need to and then make more time for your favorite people in your free time.
You can schedule your work around your social life, instead of the other way around – have lunch with friends who work in a different city, take the afternoon off to go to the zoo with your kids or take off work early one night for a party. Remember that your social time can also be a business opportunity for networking, too.
Later you can make up for the lost work time when there aren’t other people around to hang out with—on a quiet week day evening or even a weekend morning when nothing else is going on.
3. Take Vacations
There are days when work monopolizes me, and I eat frozen tamales and glance uncomprehendingly at the sunset out my window, wondering how the day went by. Sometimes, I’m not sure whether to be grateful for the challenges or hateful of the way work bleeds into my personal time.
Luckily, I can make up for those crunch times by taking time off for vacation at quieter times. I don’t have to worry about how much Paid Time Off I’ve accrued or what my boss is going to say when I tell him I’m going away for a week.
If you work from home and telecommute via the net, you can also take a “working vacation” nearly anytime. Find a cheap hotel with free wireless and spend your free time soaking in new scenery.
4. Trust the Future
Sometimes I get so caught up worrying about work and what will happen after my next lull in a project, that I neglect my personal life. I’ve learned to accept that sometimes I’ll forget important things like getting groceries or buying my mother a birthday present. Luckily, she’s going to love me no matter what I do, even if I fail as a writer and have to beg for work as a coffee barista.
When I was young, just out of college, I imagined that one day everything in my life would come together, and I would know my purpose in life and accomplish something amazing. Now, I’m a bit more humble. I’ve learned that life is a continual process of reinvention. In order to succeed, you need to know what your goal is. And one setback or one step ahead can shape the future in ways you can’t immediately understand.
It’s helpful to think of freelancing as a stage in your life that you get to learn from and enjoy, rather than a task you have to succeed or fail at. If you fail, you can go back to other types of work and maybe find your way back to freelancing again at some other point. Maybe the freelance work you’re doing now will lead the way into the perfect office job you used to always want. For now, just enjoy what you have and where you’re at, and trust that the future will bring you something good too.
5. Take Charge
No one will treat you like an independent business person unless you act like one. That doesn’t mean you can control every aspect of your work, because you’re still working to please the client. But you can also set boundaries for your work life and be firm about them.
If you’re asking for a vacation at a time when you don’t know of any work that’s coming up, don’t even ask — just notify your boss that you’ll be away during certain dates. If you’re already hard at work on a project for one client and they ask you to put it aside for another, sometimes you can just tell them you’ll get to the second once you’ve finished the first.
Usually you’ll find that you’ll earn people’s respect by setting certain boundaries –just make sure to be polite and consider compromising when it’s important to them.
6. Fake It Till You Make It
If my freelance business had a motto, this would be it! I suspect there are times when all of us feel a bit insecure about our qualifications, expertise or abilities. But it’s helpful to remember that what you have to offer isn’t just the your static experiences, because you are always growing — what’s important is your potential to achieve something for yourself and your client.
Use your extra time and flexibility while freelancing to study another aspect of your job, take classes or teach yourself a new skill. Read as much as you can about what you don’t already know, and soon enough you will find yourself growing more capable and confident. Freelancing is a great way to continue educating yourself, while being the expert at a particular job too.
7. Ask Others How They Do It
Sometimes you can get great advice from people you know, or web sites like Freelance Folder. And I’m interested to hear yours — so, how do you handle the contradictions and compromises that come along with freelancing? Are you taking creative control of your business, or letting your clients take control over you?
About the author: Amy Hengst has been a freelance technology writer in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2006. She writes articles, blogs and is developing class curricula for high school students. You can find her on the web at www.inkweave.com
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13 Comments
Dave Navarro
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:47 am#3 is the clincher. You can’t let yourself get burned out. I had to take a break at the end of June because I saw the warning signs (and I *never* take vacations) … but now I’m beginning to schedule them in. :-)
David Hepburn
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pmI found that a huge way to improve how you appear to clients as a business instead of just a freelancer is to incorporate.
Yes, I know there are circumstances where that isn’t the best option, but I did and I love it! While there are many perks, including more protection liability-wise, one of my favorites is being able to tell potential clients that you are a company and not just a one man show.
There’s something about being able to put Inc. at the end of your company name that adds to your credibility. Strange, but totally true!
Mason Hipp
August 22nd, 2008 at 2:51 pmDavid — I completely agree. Personal reasons aside, there are many marketing benefits to looking and acting successful. Incorporating is a standard action for many companies — companies that have a ton of credibility — and mimicking that in a freelance practice can have a lot of benefits. Of course, incorporation has its downsides too :-)
Great post, Amy, thanks!
Jeff Long
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:37 pmGreat points all. When I work with clients, I know they are looking for a knowledgeable person(s) to get the job done and most of the time they want a company and not a freelancer. The benefit of being a freelancer is that you get to the point where you have several people feeding you work. As a small company you have to go out and look for work which means that technically you are out of a job after each project. As a freelancer that may still apply but I know for a fact (cuz I’ve been both) that having a good balance of life and work is the best thing ever. You can’t have a satisfied life with only a heavy work load. It’s good to get out of the office/basement where you work and enjoy some fresh air, family time and fun with friends.
Long time reader…first time posting. I feel like I just called in to a radio show!
Jeff
http://improvemyvideo.wordpress.com/
Nicole LaMarco
August 22nd, 2008 at 10:55 pmThis is an awesome post and there are great tips here! As a ghostwriter, there are many clients who will assume you are working only for them and your time is wide open. Time management is something I have been working on since I started this business! Basically, once I started putting restrictions on how much work I take on, I was better able to manage my time.
Patricia Ann Lewis-MacDougall
August 23rd, 2008 at 10:25 amI believe in every word that is printed in the blog but I want to share my sob story on the net anyway.
I’m going into my second year with only an afternoon per week to really relax and that’s only when my husband or my best friend forces me to take a break. So I find it very hard to make that “I’m in control with my freelancing career” belief a reality!
I’m an illustrator, and at this moment I only have 3 clients on the roster but that consists of 6 children’s books and 18 giftware figurines and to meet every deadline that they came up with. Now I normally can juggle up to half a dozen clients with smaller projects but this is my first time with just 3 clients and working on 3 very large and time consuming projects.
Now I signed the contracts they provided (in the book publishing business, you don’t write up the contracts, they do.) but that was over two years ago and now they all came back at once wanting me to illustrate for them at the same time!
What do you do, I signed the contracts and must commit to them.
Fortunately they are very wonderful people to work with and I do LOVE my job but right now while I’m writing this, I’m exhausted and my hands ache and my forearms feel like someone is bending them in two. I am planning to take a wee vacation in October and to not take on anymore major projects until spring 09 (I think I can manage it finacially…..I think) I also have a closet full of unfinished projects consisting children’s books of my own, giftware designs and fine art projects that I would like to persue .
And I’m terrified to look at the untouched book-keeping that is piling up in my office and networking projects that is constantly pushed aside (my website is in shambles).
One more thing I would like to mention before I get back to work is that I do head out to the gym and yoga studio 5 times a week but feel guilty doing so. It’s not a zen workout when all you can think about is illustrating other peoples ideas and know longer feel refreshed after my sun salutations.
So if anyone has suggestions for me, I would be more than happy to hear them!
~Pat Ann~
Who use to be a very positive person and would like to be that again!
Ardy
August 25th, 2008 at 2:57 amAmy WOW! Great post you summed up everything that I m going through. The only thing that helps me is that I am not alone (literally i have two mates who work with me).
Keep up the good work Amy ;) and Patricia I would like to offer you my help. It would be an honor to help a fellow freelancer so if you want, we can give a face lift to your website we won’t charge you anything (scout’s honor) for it.
Gem
August 26th, 2008 at 9:36 pmWhen I was new to freelance, I grabbed all the opportunities that I can get. I was desperate. This went on for about two months, until I got tired and burned out and just let those opportunities pass by.
In the end striving for balance is the key to a successful freelance life.
Amy Hengst
August 26th, 2008 at 9:54 pmThanks everyone for your great comments. It is refreshing to get a glimpse into the lives of other freelancers. We all have such different experiences and strategies.
David Hepburn–you are right. I’ve thought about incorporating and in fact my tax attorney has advised me to do it just for the financial reasons. It also seems like a good step forward in changing the perspective, to look at freelance as a total business strategy, not just something you’re doing for yourself. Also it opens up the possibility of an idea I have a love-hate relationship with — outsourcing!
Jeff, I’m honored this is your first comment :) You are so right that a heavy work load isn’t enough for a satisfying life.
Nicole, I have the same experience. I have a few clients who supply a lot of my workload. The stability is nice, but then they expect to be the *only* client and get put out when I mention that I have other commitments too. I have started to balance this by reminding clients up front that I have other jobs, and that I will need advanced notice and planning to schedule everything well. I think that planning helps them as much as it helps me!
Patricia, take care of yourself! If you make your livelihood typing and drawing you can’t afford to hurt your arms. Maybe you can work with the clients to set up a schedule that helps you plan your time and sets clear boundaries about how much they can expect from you at once. Make sure to take breaks, to exercise and protect your body–that is your most valuable resource. I know, because I once had to quit a job due to arm pain and problems. Now I manage and write a blog about repetitive stress injuries like tendonitis and carpal tunnel, with tips and tricks for treating the pain at home. You’re welcome to check it out, at rsihealer.com. Hope it works out for you! On the bright side it sounds like you have a lot of fun and rewarding projects to work on, and I hope you can enjoy them.
Ardy, that is great to have company. I go to coffeeshops at least once a week, just so I don’t feel I’m working alone! Good luck.
Gem, I’m glad you’ve learned to go easy on yourself. Freelancing isn’t any fun if you’re too stressed out to enjoy it. On the other hand, it’s great that you have that many opportunities!
Everyone, thanks so much for your comments and best of luck with your business. Take care!
Genuine Chris Johnson
August 26th, 2008 at 9:58 pmNot bad. But lead generation is king of the world till you get an assistant.
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