Freelance Confidential - Amanda Hackwith [13]
I'm pretty happy if I can earn enough to support my family (my husband works part-time so I'm the main breadwinner), keep a flexible schedule, work minimal hours, and generally enjoy my life. I used to set income goals, but year after year I didn't change a single thing I was doing in order to reach those goals. Eventually I realized that income goals don't motivate me, and I stopped setting them.
The common theme in all of my expert interviews was the need for a professional to create his or her own definition of success. Chris McConnell, co-founder of BrandLuxe and FreelanceReview, synthesizes these goals quite well:
I think you are successful if you are happy. I personally don't measure success by money or status. If that stuff makes you happy then I think you can consider yourself successful. So I think as a freelancer you've got to ask yourself what makes you happy. It may be working with a certain type of client, it may be that you can get paid more, it may be that you don't have to take orders from a boss, it may be the fact that you can simply work at home and see your family more or it may be something else entirely.
Learning from Myths
Even when they prove untrue, myths can have a grain of truth which we can learn from. Although security, income, and work-life balance are not the definition of success after all, each quality will have varying degrees of importance in your own personal definition of success.
You'll need to reflect on what standards for success are important to you and your family and set goals accordingly. Setting your own personal goals for success can help break plateaus or professional slumps when you've been working a while. More importantly, goals help you realize when you're doing well; make sure to take the time to recognize your success and enjoy the rewards.
And for those bad days? Travis King puts things in perspective:
Anyone who wants to experience a treadmill should try working retail for 10 years. Freelancing is all beer and skittles in comparison.
In all honesty, I think most of us would rather not want to work at any job. Freelancing has a ton of perks but it also has its downsides. With freelancing you are often the only man in the trench, so when the bullets start flying you better get your head down. That being said, I'd take a bad day freelancing over a good day in the office any day.
Freelance Freedom appears courtesy of the artist, N.C. Winters. http://www.ncwinters.com
Expand with Engagement, Not Marketing
A continuous stream of new projects and clients is the center of any good freelance business. While word of mouth referrals from happy clients is the best way to bring new work in, an active online portfolio and participation in social services like Twitter, Facebook, and the rest become more popular each year.
Social networking sites in particular jumped considerably as viable job sources from the 2007 survey to the present. We'll take a look at:
Keeping in touch with existing and former happy clients to bring in those referrals.
Presenting a portfolio that gives hiring clients exactly what they want.
Striking a key balance of personal and professional interactions in social networks.
Targeting your potential clients where they already are.
Marketing is Not the Enemy…
Even experienced, successful freelancers with flourishing businesses can fall into the trap. You develop a solid roster of clients and think you have it made. You have more work than you can fathom coming in, and it is a heroic feat to just keep up with the demand. You spend all your time working your craft and enjoying your success. But then a lean time hits: your loyal clients run out of projects and the phone stops ringing. You blow the dust off your portfolio site, but all the new clients are gravitating to others. You're starting from square one again.
Without a doubt, maintaining a steady stream of new clients and project opportunities