Freelancing

I get asked a lot about freelancing.Turns out, a lot of folks are interested in cutting ties with aneight to five, embracing a slice of transience, and gigging their wayto the top. It’s a fuck of a road. One me and a lot of others aretrying to figure out as we go. Having written a few ‘Okay, here’swhat I think you should do and here’s what I think you can expect,’messages to friends, I decided it might be good if I just puteverything down in one place. So here goes. If you’re interested inlearning about my path into freelancing, read on.

First, some background. In September2019, I was living in my mother’s basement waiting for the UK foreignoffice to approve my visa to live and work in the UK. The applicationcost me nearly all the money I had in the world, but it was fine. Iwould stay rent-free in my wife’s studio apartment and I believed I’dbe able to find work in England relatively quickly. But then thecold, motherless fucks rejected the visa, and overnight I transformedlike Cinderella’s pumpkin from a man with a semblance of a plan to ajobless broke dude in my mother’s basement. No bueno.

While waiting for callbacks from theresumes I’d left at every greasy watering hole in town, I polishedoff the old Upwork profile to see if I could get anything kicking. Iknow some remedial WordPress and I’m certainly a Tommy TryHard whenit comes to writing. I thought maybe I could eke out a bit of scratchor at least pay for something 80-proof that might help drown thesorrows. That’s when I learned lesson one.

Lesson 1: Upwork seems to be theticket. Ifucked a bit with freelancer.com and Fiverr (actually paid an Italianteenager on Fiverr to whip up the graffiti text for the cover ofEyesore), but I think the most and best jobs are on Upwork. Might Ibe wrong? Yes. But I’ve spent 99.9% of my time as a freelancer on thesite, and for my money, that’s where the bacon’s at.

ButUpwork is a greedy piggy. Upworkskims 20% off the top for any hours you clock with the site. Thisdrops to 10% after you’ve earned a hot grand or so, but it’s still alot. This is on top of having to pay service fees, as well as pay forConnects (which are basically tokens you need to pay to apply forjobs. No connects, no apply.). Personally, I think it’s steep. Here’smy advice.

Doa couple jobs on Upwork.If you have a one-off or a short term contract, by all means, keep iton Upwork. Completing jobs on Upwork earns you valuable feedbackwhich informs future clients that you’re not a buffoon prone tolicking peanut butter off their own elbow instead of making them afunctional WordPress site.

Take long-term clients off Upwork. Once you develop a rapport with a client, once you’ve got their cell, email address, and you’re sharing Google Docs, you may want to give them a call and ask if you can accompany their business off Upwork. Most will already know that Upwork takes a deep cut and many are expecting to get this kind of call. If they’re not, you might be able to enlighten them. Pulling a long-term client off Upwork earns you a 20% boost in pay in a Hong Kong jiffy, so it’s definitely worth it. I use PayPal to invoice clients. This costs me 3% which is annoying, but not enough that I’m going to find a better way to do it. If you do decide to do this, make sure this conversation doesn’t happen on the Upwork messaging service, or you risk a terms of service violation.

Lesson2: Don’t stock shit that you don’t want to sell. WhenI was first starting, one of the services I offered was monthlysocial media. It just seemed like a market-y thing to do. But here’sthe thing, I hate social media. To me, social media is a bottomlesspit of despair. You write a post for March 3rdand okay, it’s all well and good, but then you have to write one forMarch 4thand 5thand 6thand so on. It’s a fucking nightmare. I don’t even follow myself onTwitter. Why oh why was I offering services to customers that Iliterally hated to do?

It’s true that jobs lead to jobs in freelance, and one of those social media jobs turned into super consistent SEO blogs, which I hate a whole lot less. So take this with a grain of salt. But I think it’s important to offer services you are actually interested in. Don’t try to write blogs if you want to design logos. Don’t design logos if you want to write emails. Do yourself a favor, pick a couple of things you don’t mind doing and stick to those. Sure, they might evolve into something else later, but remember, you’re the boss here, don’t stick yourself with bullshit tasks. If you need to brush up or want to get more confident in your skills, drop $25 on a course over at Udemy. It’s definitely worth it. Confidence = jobs.

Exude professionalism even when your desk is an ironing board.

Lesson 3: You need a portfolio. Let me save you some trouble. I applied for a lot of jobs without a portfolio and I applied for a lot of jobs with one. The response rate you’ll get applying for jobs with a portfolio is NOTICEABLY BETTER. So make one. Even if you have to make it from scratch, right now. Take a week. Hell, take two. Whip up some content using the two or three things you decided to focus on, and stick them in a portfolio. I use the free version of journoportfolio because I’m not desperate for work. If I was, I’d pay the $6.50 a month or whatever it is to add more content because TRUST ME, that shit pays for itself.

ProTip:Making a portfolio from scratch and don’t know where to start? Lookfor some jobs you’re interested in and create a writing sample. Youcan use it in your application andstick it in your portfolio at the same time. Bob’s your uncle. Twobirds stoned at once.

Lesson 4: On rates. Peopleequate price with quality, so don’t sell yourself short. This isespecially true for freelancers because we miss out on payments otheremployees might be used to, like paid downtime, regular taxwithholding, or healthcare contributions. The value of those thingsadd up quick, and when rent is due, the $30 an hour you were almostembarrassed to charge seems like a hard hill of uncooked beans. Afterabout a year and a half, my advertised price on Upwork is $55 anhour, marked up from $35.

Ialso know many freelancers who refuse to charge by the hour, andinstead charge by the job. This can be a great option too as you’lleventually get faster the more you write for the same client. Whytake a pay cut because you’ve gotten better at something?

I’ll tell you this too, in the interest of demystification: Last year I made about $27,000 freelancing. It’s not a lot. It’s even less than a lot when you consider that number is before taxes (including a self-employment tax of an additional 15% that you may or may not be aware of). It’s more than some and less than others. If you’re looking to stack paper, look for something more stable. If a work/life balance is more your thing, you really can’t beat it.

Wife at the office.

Lesson 5: On interviews. Theinterview is as important as the job it will get you. If a clientneeds a 1,500 word article and they want a phone call first, measurethat as a use of your time. It’s a numbers game. Don’t spend threehours writing a sonnet for a cover letter. Keep it short and snappy,and note that clients that are needy during the interview processwill likely be needy as they give you work. Do everything in yourpower to avoid working for free.

Lesson 6: Clients. When it comes to freelancing, we are Mormon cousins, Midwest lesbians. We CRAVE long-term relationships. Nibbles can be nice, especially for generating reviews, but one-off jobs won’t pay the bills. Long-term clients are critical for long-term success. Pay attention during the application and interview process. Find the right client and you’ll set yourself up so they’ll do the legwork for you. That shit’s key. Agency clients plop work in your lap, through no effort on your part. The benefit is obvious, but it also means you have no control over vetting that client, and you might find yourself owing 2,000 words per week about the latest in automotive windshield technology. But hey, it can’t all be roses, can it? A freelancer with three or four agency clients will find themselves working full-time hours lickety split.

Lesson7: Expect your clients to overanticipate how busy they will be. Ican’t tell you how many clients I’ve had who told me they need 20hours per week. Actually, I can. It’s three. Want to know how manyhours per week those clients need? It varies, but I’d say between 5and 8. People overestimate their workload. It makes sense. Theywouldn’t be looking for freelancers if they weren’t alreadyoverstretched. They’re stressed. They’re busy. But once they bringyou aboard and you’ve sorted out the logjam (usually 2-3 weeks), thetap tends to slow. Expect and prepare for a first wave, then expectthings to slow down, often by a lot.

Lesson8: Set boundaries. Look,I get that we can’t always control the flow of our work. Deadlinescreep up, things shift around, and we’ve all got to put in extra timeto get the deliverable out the door. Shit happens when you partynaked. While the occasional working weekend should be expected, it isimportant to set clear boundaries with clients. Tell them yourworking hours. Tell them your days off. Give them clear turnaroundtimes for your work so they don’t hang on to unrealisticexpectations. You are, after all, a human fucking being and not acontent fucking factory. Don’t feel like you need to respond to thatslack at 8PM. When you’re working from home it’s easy for lines toget blurred. Set up regular hours and work as regularly as you canwithin those hours, and know when to call it quits. Trust me, you’llthank me.

Iwrite this list not because I’ve got it figured out. Trust me, I’mlearning how to do this all the time and I’m sure in a year, I’llwrite another article that contradicts everything I said in this one,aside from the thing about partying naked. For some people,freelancing is too risky of an option and I completely understand.For others though, this seems like the way forward with traditionalwork environments shifting and freedom becoming a higher-valuedcommodity. Hopefully you found this helpful, and whatever you do,don’t forget that there’s a lot of us out there dicking around withthis freelancing thing and remember you aren’t in it alone.

The post Freelancing appeared first on Kyle David Iverson.