Freelance Confidential - Amanda Hackwith [8]
Passive income is just one of many ways freelancers endeavor to grow their business. When asked about their ambitions for growing their business in the future, the majority of freelancers had ambitions beyond finding their next client.
What are your business plans for the future?
Expanding a business with partners or by hiring employees is a popular choice for growth. Generating income, from blogging or selling product or stock, has also gained quite a bit of traction since 2007. We'll look into strategies for passive income later on, as well as tips for creating credibility with a professional blog.
Six Realities Every Freelancer Faces
From day one, freelancing is a learning experience. A successful freelancer will adapt quickly and apply even the toughest lessons to her business plan. I asked our experts what some of the toughest lessons and surprises are for experienced freelancers, and their frank responses shaped the majority of the rest of this book.
Let's face it: as a sole business owner, you're frequently on your own. You frequently won't have any experienced mentor, manager, or wise guru to teach you important lessons or guide you through tough business decisions. Those lessons, decisions and hard truths will dictate the success of your business, which means you don't have the luxury to ignore them.
I asked our experts what surprises they experienced during their career, and what lessons they felt freelancers need to learn to be successful. Their answers frequently were similar and underlined the key theme of freelancing: succeed or fail, it all comes down to what you put into it.
Reality #1: Success is a personal goal.
Success seems like it should be easy to identify—make more money, become rich and famous, right? However, most freelancers began their own business because they wanted to define their own ideas about work and success. For some, it might be affording that new sports car, but for others it might mean more time with family, or being able to travel and work from anywhere.
When goals for success are ultimately personal goals, it becomes harder to take a step back and measure your progress. Ed Gandia suggests identifying keys areas to review:
I have a habit of asking myself: Am I consistently getting the clients, projects, income and lifestyle I want? If so, then I know I'm on track. If any one of these is off course, I know I need to work on that.
It takes self-discipline to hold yourself accountable for goals, and to be able to identify what you're doing right and where to improve. Clearly identify what you want to get out of freelancing—or why you got into it in the first place. Then, build a plan for achieving it and plan regular reviews to make sure you stay on track.
For more on success and the "myths" of freelancing, check out Know the Myths of Success.
Reality #2: The majority of any business is not the creative work, it's the business maintenance, and it's just as important.
We saw in the survey chapter that a majority of freelancers may only bill their clients for 40% or less of the hours they work a week. Any successful freelancer quickly learns what N.C. Winters, freelance illustrator and comic artist, has said about the business:
Freelancing is hard. The stuff you take for granted at a regular job: invoicing, billing, payments, promotion, taxes, marketing, overhead—you have to do it all yourself. I expected it, but didn't really know the amount of work it actually entailed. It's easy to say "I want to work for myself," but the reality is it's a lot harder to anticipate the costs and time commitment needed for running a business. Getting caught up in the minutiæ is no fun, and can be mind-numbing, but it's necessary. It's more than just getting to be your own boss with your own ideas. It's not just creativity all