Is freelancing all that it’s cracked out to be? Or is the flexibility and freedom simply a facade hiding sleepless nights chasing deadlines and late payments? As with most things in life, the truth often lies somewhere in the middle. Freelancing can be a great way to earn a living while setting your own hours and work arrangements, but it can quickly turn into a nightmare for those who are less prepared for the challenges ahead. If you’re a full-time employee looking to jump over the fence into self-employment, this article will either strengthen your resolve to take the plunge or rip off your rose-tinted lenses.
Challenges that all freelancers will inevitably face
There’s not a single career out there that doesn’t come with challenges. Even those working in comfortable jobs will experience doubts over whether they’re truly maximising their time and potential. It’s simply something that comes with the territory. But if you’re able to overcome the road bumps on the winding freelance career path, then you may just find yourself enjoying some of those sweet self-employment perks.
Freelancer challenge #1: Finding clients who will pay fair wages, on time
Unfortunately, working as a freelancer places you in competition with thousands of relatively inexperienced creatives who are willing to provide their services for less. And that’s before accounting for the millions of gig workers on Fiverr and Upwork who can afford to offer cheaper rates simply because they live in areas where the cost-of-living is lower.
Instead of participating in an unwinnable race-to-the-bottom, you’ll want to work your way towards a broad customer base consisting of quality clients who are willing to pay market rates on time. If you have relevant full-time experience, consider leveraging your existing body of work and industry connections to give yourself a head start.
However, if you’re just starting from scratch, you may have to accept less-than-ideal rates in the beginning. But by consistently delivering quality work, achieving results for your clients, and collecting positive testimonials, you’ll eventually put together a portfolio that pulls in higher-paying projects.
And as much as we encourage freelancers to embrace the hustle, there are clients out there who take advantage of less experienced freelancers to extract more work than they’re willing to pay for — if at all. Freelancers are often advised to request for 50% payment upfront to prevent clients from ghosting. In practice, however, this may be awkward for newbie freelancers to bring up, especially since the projects that they’ll be working on won’t cost too much to begin with.
For smaller projects, it might be better to have payment terms and project parameters outlined in writing. Even in absence of a contract, agreements conducted over email or even WhatsApp are legally enforceable. Give your clients anywhere between 30-60 days to process your payment. If payment still doesn’t arrive after that timeframe, consider filing to the Small Claims Tribunal (SCT) to get the money that you rightly deserve.
Freelancer challenge #2: Preparing to wear multiple hats
Chasing invoices isn’t the only auxiliary task that freelancers have to deal with. When you’re running a one-man business, everything from marketing to client servicing will fall under your jurisdiction. And you can’t afford to skimp on any one aspect, either. Neglect self-promotion efforts, and you might find yourself running dry when your current projects conclude. Lose track of business expenses, and you might end up with significantly less profits than initially expected.
On one hand, learning to deal with so many business domains can make you an attractive employee if you ever decide to return to full-time employment in the future. But even if you don’t, continued exposure to new tasks might even allow you to reach levels of competency that allow you to expand your service offerings.
Say you’re a photographer who primarily works on self-portraits, but starts documenting yourself at networking events to expand your professional presence. If you do this task well, you might find yourself expanding into event photography or even social media management. The possibilities are endless when you’re in charge of a business, but only if you’re capable of pulling it off well.
The flipside of constantly juggling everything is of course, burnout. While there is certainly value in figuring out the nuts and bolts of how everything works, it does pay to outsource or automate our work from time to time. As the saying goes, time is money. And if you can generate more revenue by concentrating on tasks that you’re good at while entrusting other freelancers to deliver on the rest, then that extra bit of expenditure might just be worth it.
Freelancer challenge #3: Working for multiple bosses
Freelancers don’t just play multiple roles, they also work for multiple bosses. If you think about it, a boss is essentially someone who pays your wages and has the power to dictate the direction of a project. While freelancers generally have more freedom to pick and choose who they work with, you’ll more often than not find yourself working according to a client’s brief rather than something that stems purely from your own creative direction.
And with each client that you onboard, you’ll be starting on a clean slate. This means establishing rapport and trust all over again. Unlike clients who trust you to deliver the goods, new clients may not take too kindly when you pick up your child from tuition on weekday afternoons or block out the mornings for workout sessions. While freelancing offers you some flexibility, keep in mind that most of your clients will be working during office hours. You’ll want to therefore ensure that there is some overlap with the 9-5 schedule while also allowing yourself to work during your optimal hours.
This is the rite of passage that every freelancer must follow to build up a stable clientele that doesn’t wipe out completely when the economy takes a nosedive. You might even say that freelancing is a little bit like investing. It starts out tough and you might not see immediate returns on your efforts, and you might even see dips in your monthly income when clients drop you without warning. But with consistent effort and strategic diversification of your portfolio, you’ll eventually be paid dividends in the form of work flexibility and even a bigger pay cheque.
Freelancer challenge #4: Learning to take a proper break
Full-time employees get to enjoy benefits and a guaranteed paycheck even while on vacation. That’s probably one of the biggest luxuries that freelancers don’t get to enjoy. Freelancers who are constantly caught up in day-to-day operations often find it hard to drop the ball and take a proper break, even if every single bone in their body is screaming for one.
There’s really no easy way around this, as there are hardly any clients out there who will be willing to invoice you for a month of doing nothing (these rare gems definitely exist, but don’t expect to chance upon them). Realistically, your options lie between completing a bunch of work in advance so that you can afford to spend a couple of weeks without deadlines on your mind, or inform your clients about your break in advance and accepting the smaller pay cheque.
Timing your breaks in advance can help to stave off the anxiety that comes with lowered income. For example, if you’ve got a couple of major projects that will conclude around the same time period, you’ll probably make more money in those months to make up for the loss. With trusted clients, you may also request for deadline extensions on non-urgent projects instead of letting them go altogether.
Whichever option you choose, always make sure to schedule time for a break. For most people, the temporary decrease in pay cheque will pay itself off in the form of sustainable productivity and overall better well-being.
Freelancer challenge #5: Returning to the workforce
New freelancers are rightly concerned about how freelancing for a period of time can help or hurt their long-term prospects should they change their minds further down the road. When CreativesAtWork was first born, some clients even asked if freelancers was a euphemism for people who couldn’t find a proper job. While that sentiment was more prevalent ten years ago, it wouldn’t surprise if there are still employers today with internalised biases towards the profession.
There is an upside to this, however. People who even consider freelancing tend to be more free-spirited individuals who appreciate flexibility and autonomy at work. So if your freelance resume is going to deter more traditionally oriented employers, you probably weren’t going to be a right fit anyway.
The last thing you want to do is not know when to call it quits. It’s one thing to spend a couple of months building a business and waiting for the right lead to show up, but it’s another to spend years waiting for your dream client to show up when you have bills to pay.
Think freelancing might be the career path for you?
If reading this article still doesn’t scare you away from becoming a freelancer, then you just might have what it takes to survive in this cutthroat, feast-and-famine environment. Reach out to us to take your creative ideas to the world, or subscribe to our incubator plans for exclusive access to freelancer tools and networks that can take your career in freelancing to the next level.