The Big Leap

A Guide to Freelancing for Creatives

Martina Flor

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781616899561
• eBook ISBN: 9781616899752
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Careers

Ditch your nine-to-five and become your own boss with this insider's guide to freelancing from Martina Flor, a leading designer, educator, author, and entrepreneur. The Big Leap covers all aspects of starting your own business, from practical skills like identifying potential clients and pricing projects to important big-picture topics like managing time and finances, diversifying income streams, and taking care of your most important tool—you!Flor demonstrates each concept with helpful case studies pulled from her own journey from freelance designer to influential, international business owner. Creatives across disciplines will benefit from this thorough and easy-to-follow career guide, including designers, illustrators, photographers, programmers, writers, and editors.

Freelancer = Entrepreneur

As a freelancer, you are an entrepreneur. You will own this business, no matter its size and scope. You will decide on its direction, execute the work, search and connect with clients, invoice those clients, and pay the necessary bills for services that keep your business thriving. Sounds like a lot to do, doesn’t it? It is, and that’s why this may require a shift of attitude and perspective from you, the business owner.

In most cases, as an employee, one takes instructions from the boss. When there’s work to be done, you execute that work. On days when there are no urgent deadlines, you might take the time to surf the internet, have an extra cup of coffee, or take a longer lunch than usual. When you’re self-employed things are different: there is always work to do. Your daily work includes not only your creative work for clients, but many other aspects that you may not have had to deal with so far. When you’re not doing client assignments, you are updating your website or portfolio with your most recent completed projects, paying an invoice from a subcontractor, or trying to engage the next client. To cover all your freelance bases, you will have to learn new things, such as how to manage your taxes as a self-employed person, how to run the software that maintains your website, and how to manage your time more efficiently.

Of course, in many cases, you will be able to work with collaborators. You can, for example, delegate your tax preparation to an accountant. You can hire a web designer to keep your online portfolio up-to-date. These are all possibilities and it is smart to make use of them, but even when you have help in certain areas, you will still be taking care of a lot more things than you have so far. Probably the biggest change you’ll experience when going freelance: you’ll be at the helm most of the time. Your stance and attitude must be active rather than passive. It all comes down to you.

Scope Map

The decision to become a freelancer is usually motivated by the desire to do work that you love, rather than work that is either unpleasant or “good enough.” Because being self-employed involves so much responsibility, and can feel like more work than being employed by someone else, I suggest you compromise as little as possible and do work that keeps you happy and fulfilled—this will be your reward.

What you can do and what you want to do will help guide your freelance business. You might want to do illustration only, focus solely on photography, or make graphic design your meat and potatoes. And within your chosen field, you may want to focus on a specific area, such as culture, pharmaceuticals, or entertainment.

This is where a “scope map” comes in. At the end of this chapter, you’ll find a worksheet for creating your own scope map. This map is a written document and not an actual map, and is made up of two things:

1. The things you can do: This part of your map defines and clarifies the range of projects you can apply your skills to. For example, if you are a graphic designer, you can do corporate design, brochures, logos, layout, and editorial design, among many other things. If you’re a photographer, you can photograph social events, art, and commercial products, or specialize in documentary images. Your skills are your resources that will define how you achieve your goals and grow your business.

2. The things you want to do: This part of your map defines very precisely the job that you want to do. It’s your true north, what’s calling you, and where you envision yourself at your happiest.

When you first start out, you likely won’t make enough to cover your expenses. The first work you take on will not necessarily align with the work you ultimately want to do. That’s OK. Do work at the start that will help you pay your bills while you spend time attracting more desirable commissions and projects. One thing to bear in mind: make sure those jobs you take to pay the bills do not prevent you from dedicating time to achieving your ultimate goals as a freelancer. Try to devote part of your day to projects that help you expand your portfolio in the direction you want to go. You can even try to complete those assignments that you don’t like so much with the skills you want to use more often. For example, if you want to do more illustration, and you just took on an assignment for the design of a brochure, why not use your illustration skills to add some visual interest to the layout? Here the benefit is double: you pay the bills and expand your portfolio.

Keep your vision and goals in the forefront of your mind. Dedicating time to them is essential, as essential as having patience and giving your business time to develop. It isn’t going to happen overnight. It will be a few months before you get into a rhythm and receive your first solid assignments— and those assignments will, ideally, bring in new assignments. This process will require your patience and perseverance, and a proactive attitude.

Being Your Own Boss

As a freelancer, you are the one who makes the decisions about all aspects of your business. This will allow you to mold your work life in whatever manner you wish—a truly fabulous prospect! Your personality and your way of life will have a direct impact on what you do. If you are an anxious person, it will affect your business in both helpful and challenging ways, as will being a slower person. If you work better at night than during the day, you can accommodate your own rhythms, by working with customers who are in another time zone, for example.

If you like to travel, you can apply to give talks at conferences or teach workshops in places you’d like to explore.

In this new venture of yours, you are the central point of everything you build. You will see how rewarding it can be to build something that is entirely your own.

The Potential to Earn More

Another piece of good news! Contrary to what many believe, a freelancer can have a substantially higher income than an employee. A freelancer can also earn the same as an employee but work considerably fewer hours. One assignment can help you pay for three months of living expenses, but only require one month of work. Depending on what you do, there are jobs that will earn you royalties, providing you with profit over time without you even having to work for it!

Your possible sources of income increase exponentially when you are self-employed because you can take advantage of your diverse range of skills. If, for example, you work with photography and love to teach, you can do work for clients, sell your photos, and teach classes and workshops. Later in this book we will discuss how to broaden the range of possibilities and how to price your work—one of the most important and complex aspects of your practice—and manage expenses in ways that increase your potential to generate more income.

Managing Your Schedule

Managing your schedule gives you great freedom to be flexible and independent, without having to ask anyone’s permission to do anything. That said, you’ll be doing work for clients, so you’ll have to be available during certain time ranges so that you can conference when necessary.

Managing your own schedule will require a certain amount of self-discipline on your part. With no almighty boss dictating what must be done, following a schedule will require commitment.

Ideally, your workday should be tailored to you. If you like sleep, plan a workday that begins a little later than usual and stretches into the evening. You can also take Fridays off or work a half day when you want to. Forget about the structures you’ve followed up to now—your workdays can be any way you want! The important thing is that you carve out work hours for yourself and stick to them, so that your practice maintains orderand consistency.

Decision-Making

You will now be making decisions in all aspects of your working life: you will decide which commissions you decline and which you take, how much you charge, the best way to execute assignments. As I mentioned earlier, you’ll choose your clients, and you’ll stop working for those you don’t like to work for. You will decide whether the walls of your workspace ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: On Freelancing
• Chapter 2: First Steps
• Chapter 3: Generating Income
• Chapter 4: Finding Clients
• Chapter 5: Day-to-Day Administration
• Chapter 6: Getting the Job Done, Part I—Securing the Assignment
• Chapter 7: Getting the Job Done, Part II—Executing the Assignment
• Chapter 8: Sustainable Growth
• What’s Next
• Afterword
• Acknowledgments