Advice for Freelancers
The world of freelance can be a daunting place, especially when you’re first starting out. Sometimes it’s not always clear what you could or should be doing to help your new business venture grow and flourish.
I wanted to help those of you who are currently looking into become freelance get a better understanding of the freelance world, as well as some general information and tips that I think will help you in your journey!
Rates
Work out an hourly (or daily, or per-project) rate that you’ll be happy and comfortable working at in advance. You don’t want to be in a position to take on your first clients and not know how to price your work. Trust me, I’ve been there.
The generally accepted equation to work out what you’re annual salary should be is:
Hourly Rate = (annual salary + annual expenses + annual profit) / annual billable work hours.
But that doesn’t take into consideration how arbitrary “annual expenses” is in that sum, nor does it think about the work/life balance. Jennifer Bourn goes into a lot of detail on what to consider when calculating your hourly rate on her blog here. I highly recommend you check that out.
Get a Contract
When you’re starting out, it’s easy to say to yourself that you won’t be needing a proper contract, but you will.
You need to protect yourself, and your clients, should anything go wrong. If there are any disputes in payment, timeframes or delivery, a proper contract will cover all of that.
If you don’t know how to write one or what to include, TeamCrunch, a Brighton based accountancy team, have some very helpful information and examples.
https://www.crunch.co.uk/knowledge/contracts/protect-yourself-with-these-contract-samples/
Deposits
You might feel hesitant to request a deposit upfront when discussing working for a client, but don’t be. You want to make sure that you’re going to get paid. Plus, most professional clients won’t have an issue with paying an advance.
The percentage requested is up to you, so choose an amount that works best for yourself. Obviously not 100% though, as nice as that would be!
Schedule
Although this sounds like an obvious thing, it can sometimes be hard to know when to stop working for the day. Again, trust me, I’ve been there.
Set specific timeframes for yourself. Say something like “I’m going to start work at 10am, and finish at 6pm. After that, I relax for the rest of the night.” Decide on a schedule that best fits the way you like to work.
Also try to dedicate certain times during the day where you’ll be speaking to clients. With the instant communication world we live in, picking up your phone at all times during the day can be a real productivity killer!
Remember to factor for the work/life balance! You want to give yourself time to unwind, to spend time with friends and family, or even just with yourself, away from the screen. You don’t want to be at the end of your life looking back wondering why you spent so much time working!
Always be Professional
It’s up to you to always remain professional. This is both in your communication with clients, when giving and receiving feedback, and in the way you conduct yourself in general.
Start emails with a friendly tone, ask about the client personally, and sign off with a nice “Warm regards,” Being nice goes a long way!
I (sort of) wrote a little bit more about this on the How to Give Constructive Feedback post: https://www.samueldesigns.co.uk/blog/how-to-give-constructive-feedba
Keep in mind that your social media is a very public representation of how you are as a person, and how you behave in a professional environment. Be mindful of what you’re tweeting!
Have a Backup
There are going to be lulls in work, that’s natural. It happens when you start out, and it happens when you’ve been at it for a while. It’s practically unavoidable. That’s why it’s essential to have a backup fund, or some extra income.
I tend to save 15% of whatever I’m paid and put that in a separate account, with the idea being that if there’s ever a time where I don’t get any work for months at a time, I have this fund to keep me going.
If, like myself, you’re wanting to pursue a freelance career in a creative capacity, there are tons of ways that you can start to generate a passive income by designing and creating products!
Services like Gumroad and CreativeMarket are great platforms to upload templates, textures, fonts and other products you’ve made, to start generating yourself some extra income. Other freelance services like Fiverr are a great way of generating some extra income too!
I highly recommend you read SitePoint’s article on creating a Backup Paycheck here.
Network
The dreaded “networking.” We all knew it was coming, but that didn’t make it any less scary. This is an absolutely essential part of starting out as a freelancer. Nobody is going to shout about your services, so that’s why you have to!
Things you can do to get the word out:
Hand out business cards
Advertise on social media
Start a blog
Tell friends and family
And so much more!
That’s It!
Hopefully the things mentioned here have given you some ideas about what you could be doing when moving into the world of freelance, and maybe made it that little bit less daunting!
If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a message! I’m always looking to help people, and learn a few things myself!
Good luck on your freelance journey!
Are there any other topics that you’d like to see covered here? If so, then please let me know via the contact page, and I’ll see what I can do!
As you can see from being on this site, I’m also a freelance graphic designer, so if you need help with any projects you’re working on, I’d be more than happy to get involved! I’m currently available for both short and long term hire.
Thanks for reading!