After 2 years of freelancing, there’s a lot of things I’ve learnt about living the self-employed live. To be honest, it seems most of my lessons were actually learnt in the first 2 months, and since then, have constantly been reaffirmed as the years have gone by. The freelance game certainly like a steep learning curve, with that curve itself seeing bigger highs and lows than your favourite rollercoaster, so I thought I’d share my biggest lessons to hopefully help a few people out!

TIP 1: IT PAYS TO BE PATIENT

The first thing I learned in freelancing is to acquire patience. It’s probably the most important quality that will help you succeed. From building your brand to gaining your first client, things will often take longer than you expect. I’ve learned to set aside days instead of hours, and hours instead of minutes; it’s easy to misjudge what is involved in certain tasks, especially if you are doing them for the first time. I thought my website would take a couple of hours to put together, instead, it took a couple of weeks! If you don’t have patience, it can be easy to throw in the towel and miss out on opportunities that might have just been round the corner. When you have a long-term vision, you relieve the pressure you might create when trying to do things so quickly, and tasks/goals are much easier to work towards – as they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day!

TIP 2: WORK = WORK

It may seem strange, but the easiest way to build a client base is by already having them – which if you’re just starting out, can put you between a rock and a hard place! Think of things this way, if you’re a video producer, it would be difficult to charge someone £5,000 for a promotional video if they’ve not seen any previous work; it’s a huge risk so unless you findsomeone with a gambling addiction as big as their business, you’ll struggle! You have to imagine yourself having a market value. With no work or portfolio, you are worth £0. So all you can do is offer things for free – even if the businesses you ask don’t want to use your work! Once you build up a good portfolio, your value grows and you can charging a fee that can slowly increase over time. Start from the bottom and work your way up!

TIP 3: HELP YOURSELF MEET EXPECTATIONS

Don’t fall into the habit of UNDER-estimating lead time on projects. This was (and still is) one of the biggest mistakes I make when taking on new work. For a project that would normally take 2 weeks, I seem to promise it in 1 in order to guarantee myself the job… setting higher expectations than you can deliver on (despite all your greatest efforts) can lead to disappointment on both sides. Your client feels the work is late, and you put additional pressure on yourself to complete it in time, when the client would have probably been fine with a 3 week deadline. If you finish the work early, then it’s better to have beaten expectations than have failed to meet them at all.

TIP 4: PLAN FOR FINANCIAL (IN)STABILITY

This point is a bit dry and dull, but trying to keep money aside for a ‘rainy day’ is a must, as the chances are, that rainy day will come sooner than you think, and in freelancing, rainy days can come in the form of monsoons. It’s very easy for a client to cancel, reschedule or even worse, go bust, so don’t become dependant on one particular client or piece of work. Reality soon hits when things go south, and those raining days come a lot more often than you think – trust me!

TIP 5: CONTRACTS

Get it in writing! If you’re a fan of Suits, or heaven forbid, Judge Rinder, you’ll know that any agreements involving money should include a written contract. This should be signed by both parties (yourself and the client) and detail exactly how much money is owed in correlation to the work you are doing. At the time of writing this blog, I’m going through small claims court for two unpaid invoices from the same client, I was naive enough to take their word but luckily I have confirmations and agreements in email form. Get contracts in place and cover your ass!

So there we have it! I hope these tips are helpful to you – they are certainly valuable lessons that I have learned in just a few months! If you are about to start freelancing, or have just set up, then I’d love to hear your stories, tips and pointers!