April 11th, 2007
Lessons Learned in the First 8 Months of Freelancing
One of the blogs I read regularly is that of AJAX designer Jesse Skinner. I’ve never had an extended conversation with the man, but he stands out in my memory in part because we started full-time freelancing at almost the exact same time. Naturally when he made a post about his first 2 months of freelancing, I did the same. He’s just added a post to his blog about his first 8 months of freelancing, and for some reason I’ve convinced myself I must do the same. (I plan on beating Jesse to the punch next time around, so keep your eyes peeled for my future post, Lessons Learned in the First 8.5 Months of Freelancing. I’m not taking any chances.)
A few of the points Jesse brought up really resonated with me. One is the idea of charging a fixed rate versus an hourly rate. Like any good freelancer just starting out, I used to think I was bulletproof. Regardless of what kind of work a customer wanted, I had confidence in my ability to accurately estimate the time it would require. So of course I didn’t see any reason that I shouldn’t always charge a fixed price.
If you are just beginning your freelancing career, let me set your mind at ease on one point. If you spend an hour coming up with a fixed price, the project is complicated enough that you should be charging by the hour. By all means, provide your customer a quote and set some financial benchmarks where you’ll be checking in with them to report your progress. But a fixed price should be reserved for those projects where your experience allows you to easily (read: quickly) know how much of your time it’s going to take.
Jesse also mentions spending your downtime from work away from the computer. I understand this one is tough. When are you supposed to read your blogs, catch up on web comics, and check your email? It would be beyond hypocritical for me to suggest you drop those activities, but they shouldn’t be indulged when you’re taking a 15-minute break from work. Get up and walk around. Do some household chores. Take that shower you’ve been putting off. You’ll come back to your desk refreshed and ready to dive back into productive work.
An idea that I’ll add from my personal experience is to get used to being on the phone. You and I are quite familiar and comfortable with the Internet as a communication medium. Email? Instant Messaging? Bring it on. Yet many of the people who desperately need the help of a web site designer spend as little time in front of a monitor as they can get away with it. They’re out there in the real world, making business deals and serving their customers. (That’s why they have the money to afford a web site.) You can do a lot to make these people comfortable by meeting them on their home turf. Pick up the phone and give them a call.
There’s also a great business maxim that I’ve heard repeated many times over the years. I had forgotten about it, but Nick Carter recently brought it back to my attention. You’re either growing, or your dying. There’s no such thing as maintaining. Whenever I’ve been lax about pursuing new customers for a few weeks, my entire operation has started to sag.
Is there a point you don’t want to grow past? Sometimes. Maybe you don’t want to have any employees. Then your limit is the amount of work you can personally handle or outsource. In your planning, though, you should realize that as soon as you stop chasing business, your income starts to dwindle each month. And it will probably continue to dwindle until a month or two after you start marketing efforts again.
