Freelance Lesson: Stick to the Plan

Freelance Lesson: Stick to the Plan
Written by Samuel in Freelance Lessons

When you decide to go freelance or even map out your year's goals, you need to have your end goal in mind. When I decided to go freelance a few months ago, I had three routes.

"I want to be a full-time freelancer." This was the easiest route, giving me pretty flexible hours, a larger job marketplace (as you can pursue both direct-to-client and firm jobs). The upside would be flexibility in hours, promotion of my name, and ability to make the jump to another strategy with relatively minor resistance. The downside was lower rates (firms can usually charge more because clients assume there's a team on it :) and the fact that I could only generate as much money as I had time.
"I want to build a firm." A little more work required here, but the upside can be a higher payout (from higher rates, employee work, and the building of a business), larger clients (e.g. more money and "bragging rights"), and the ability to support employees (which I believe is an admirable goal). The downside is that you better keep normal day hours, be ready for hard work (and many hats), and be ready to sacrifice (starting out, it's a lot easier and less stressful to make money for yourself).
"I want to freelance, but also pursue ideas in the meantime." With this route, I would make enough money to pay the bills, save some, and buy the occasional iPhone. In the meantime, I would take advantage of my youth and take a shot at the internet business world. The downsides: I could be wasting lots of time on ideas instead of generating sure income by just freelancing. Also, this route requires a good deal of discipline since I would be tempted to just pay the bills and goof off the rest of the time. The upsides: the possibility of starting something bigger than #1 or #2, the possibility of passive revenue (much better than trading time for money), and the most appealing upside to me: the ability to spend portions of my time on my own ideas, designs, and implementations.

Of course, I went with #3, but this past month, I quickly found myself gravitating towards full-time freelancing. It seems that people are eager to recommend me to other businesses and current clients are eager to give me more work (this is what happens when you work on schedule and on budget :-). Now most freelancers would think that this is a good thing, but since my goal is #3, I see this as bad. So my solution is simple: I don't want clients -- or at least any work that will take me closer to a full-time freelancer. Yes, I could be making more, and yes, perhaps I'm missing out on golden opportunities. But on the flip side, I'd hate to wake up 5 years from now, having worked five years as a full-time freelancer for other people, and still needing to book work to pay bills.

Lesson Learned: Working for yourself is very much about turning down good opportunities so you can pursue better ones. Think long and hard about your core plan, and don't let a little cash change your mind.

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Community Comments

Bendora
11/19/2007 12:25:19 AM

truely a great piece of text here. Got me thinking about my current goal and future goals. Thx

Las Vegas Guide
11/24/2007 7:09:23 PM

Awesome, awesome. This is good stuff. I would add one more: don't discount your pricing in hopes of gaining favor. To do that, one must prepare for it in advance by already knowing their prices, what their local market will bear and what the competition is doing. Otherwise, one could talk themselves out of a client. I think as you touched on obliquely, one must plan very carefully the road ahead as much as possible. Going into it haphazardly is not going to work.

Thanks,
TR

Michelle Hicks
12/31/2007 4:00:08 AM

Hi. I've just left my full-time job and am looking for ways to make money at home, using just my computer. I have over 20 years experience in the secretarial field and would love to freelance. Any ideas on how best to go about it?

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