Freelance Confidential - Amanda Hackwith [10]
I've always been surprised with what can happen when you work outside your comfort zone. I'm not talking about offering services you don't have a clue about, but rather about pushing yourself to try something new that you already have a passing interest in. For example, I never had any plans to become an online writer, but I took a chance, and now people actually pay me to do it.
It helps to remember that you are the most unreliable kind of narrator when it comes to the story of your career—it can surprise you constantly. I left college thinking I'd be a game designer, worked for years as a media design drone for large corporations, started my freelance career as a designer, and now I spend most of my time as a writer, manager, and creative director.
The good news is that freelancing can provide you with constant opportunities to expand your skills and try new things. In my interviews, our experts frequently attributed their success to a surprising opportunity that came up at the right time and the wisdom to go for it.
Know the Myths of Success
It is easy to tell if you're successful in a job with a pre-defined path for advancement: Are you earning raises? Are you meeting the requirements for promotions and new positions? Do you get the best seat at the holiday dinner?
As a freelancer, the metrics for success aren't nearly so neat and tidy. There's no outside measuring stick to hold your business up to, no yearly meetings with the boss to bestow a performance evaluation, no kudos from coworkers on a professional achievement. So how, then, do you know if you're on the right track for success, or wildly off course?
As we explore this chapter, we're going to see the idea of "success" is a difficult goal to define. For the purposes of the global freelance survey, we chose some traits that are commonly associated with success: security, job satisfaction (including income), and happiness. The results paint a complex picture for freelancing, and ultimately we come to another truth about freelancing: there is no one perfect picture of success. Let's take a look at job security first.
The Myth of Security
Despite the uncertain developments of the U.S. economy and world wide, freelancers reported nearly identical numbers on security between 2007 and 2010! I doubt there are many other industries or professions that can say that their projected security has not decreased over the past three years. Much of this stability may be attributed to the strength of self-employed professionals to control their work flow, rates, and client selection.
Do you feel secure as a freelancer?
While the number remained stable, it still seems split about 50/50 among freelancers. Even in bountiful times, freelance workers tend to be more pragmatic and cautious in regard to job security. This means that reported job security will not fluctuate as much as demand in the market rises and falls.
If you're one of the 43% that feels unsecure in your business, however, there are ways to improve it. Linda Formichelli, writer and co-author of the Renegade Writer, attributes much of her security to diversity:
One thing I did to make my business more secure was to diversify. I write books and articles, I do copywriting for corporate clients, and I teach e-courses and do phone mentoring for writers. Also, I diversify what I write about: My niches (which change all the time depending on the marketplace and my interests) are health/nutrition, business, and lifestyle. If one type of writing dries up, I can always turn to the others.
Diversity is at the top of the list for shoring up your business. If you have multiple and varied streams of income, it will be harder for prospects to dry up simultaneously. Even when you find yourself in a less than ideal situation of contracting for a single corporation which takes up most of your time, you can diversify by making sure you are working on multiple