In this day and age, it’s tough to stand out on your own. Unfortunately this is what causes a lot of people to stay sheltered in jobs they hate, because they have a false sense of job security. However, ask any person laid off from the recession and they’ll be the first to tell you that nothing is secure, so you might as well go for the gold and do something you really want to do.
It’s really not hard to make it as a freelancer if you’re really set on doing it. Even in the worst part of the recession, there were tons of clients and projects out there and there was, and is, never a shortage of work. The problem really becomes, not can I make it as a freelancer, but can you get the clients to find you?
A Job Is Not As Secure As You Think
A common argument to forgoing freelancing is that a job is secure. Your boss is the one responsible for finding you work and you get to sit around and soak up a paycheck whether you’re working the full eight hours or not. But is placing your livelihood on someone else really more secure than going out there and finding work for yourself?
When you’re in a job, you can’t control the work that is or isn’t coming in. You have no say whether or not to take that project and there’s nothing you can do if your boss sucks at finding work. You can come into work one more thinking everything’s peachy and then find yourself laid off. That never happens in freelancing.
When you freelance, you control everything. You know from the start that work is busy or slow, you control where you look from work and what projects you accept or turn down. You’ll never, ever, be surprised with no jobs.
Taking Your First Steps
Once you’ve made the decision to become a freelancer, it’s time to start acting on it. You need to sit down and have a serious thought about a couple of questions, before you’re able to leave your job and get going:
- What kind of work do I want to do?
- What kind of clients do I want to target?
- How much money do I need to survive?
- How much money do I want?
- How many hours do I want to work?
These are the basic questions that help build your business to what you want it to be. Let’s take a look at each of these questions and why they’re important.
What kind of work do I want to do?
You didn’t quit your crappy job to take any and every project that comes around. You want to really think hard about this one. What is it you want to do every day?
Personally, I want to only do front-end development, specifically HTML, CSS, WordPress and a bit of PHP and jQuery. That means I don’t accept design work, backend work or anything else. Front-end development is all I do, and the only thing I want to do.
Think about yourself and decide what it is you want to do. Then make sure the only projects you pitch for and accepts are the ones that fall in that range. Don’t accept development work if you just want to design, or vice-versa. Doing so dilutes your professional skills and positions you in the client’s eyes as being someone who offers those services.
What kind of clients do I want to target?
The kind of client you want to target is almost as important as the kind of work you want to do. The ranges of client choices you have depend on what it is you want to do and you can also choose client specifically on industry (like medical, military, sales, etc). If you’re a designer, you can choose small to large businesses, other freelancers, large companies or design agencies. Being a developer kind of limits your choices, although it is still possible to find normal business clients.
After a few months of freelancing I realized all of my favorite clients were agencies or other freelancers. They didn’t require hand holding and knew what to expect from me. They always paid on time and never asked for out of spec work without first offering to pay for it. So I decided to cut out any kind of client who wasn’t a design agency or another freelancer. Who is it you want to work with?
How much money do I need to survive?
This is an easy question. How much money do you need to survive? By survive, you need to be able to pay all of your bills and have a little extra for saving and spending. Finding this out helps you determine the minimum amount of hours and rates you need to charge.
How much money do I want?
Again, you didn’t become a freelancer to make a measly $30,000 a year like you did in your full-time job. You want to make more, lots more, and heck it’s easily doable if you put in some hard work.
My goal for this year was to make $100,000 before taxes and expenses. How awesome would that be for a freelancer who’s only been freelancing for a year and half to make that much?
While I think I’m going to come up short this year of my goal, it still become the driving factor and pushed me to work harder and smarter, and with that I was able to make a whole lot more than I did at my agency job. Score one for the freelancers.
So how much money do you want to make a year?
How many hours do I want to work?
The last step to starting your freelance business is now to determine how many hours a week you realistically can and want to work. Whether you want to work 20 or 100 hours a week, use that in determining how much you should charge to make your goals above.
What Next?
After you’ve figure out the answers to those five questions, you’re already ahead of the game, and you’re now ready to do what everyone else starting out does – set up your portfolio, get your social media accounts going and start looking for that work!
Your Thoughts
What steps do you think one should take to become a successful freelancer?
Amber Weinberg
Amber is a freelance front-end developer specializing in semantic and accessible custom WordPress themes. She works with agencies and other freelancers to bring their designs to life using custom ACF flexible layout builds - making them more performant and less buggy while allowing the client easy customization without breaking the design system.