5 Things You Should Consider Before Freelancing

I was still in design school when I started freelance work. Years earlier, I had decided that I wanted to do freelancing. I had read the story of illustrator Burne Hogarth, known for the comic book Tarzan. Like Hogarth, I dreamed of living on an exotic island and making comic books and illustrations for the US publishing market.

Growing up as an artist, I had a taste for freelancing, having had my own business. While in high school, I designed and printed products for clients at fourteen. I would spend time at the drawing table on ideas I presented to my customers. It was ideal because I could not pay rent, utilities, car payments, or family support. I did, though, help my family as I earned. I started a bus afternoon work for my freelance income.

Fast-forward 13 years: I am married, with two small kids, working full time at an ad agency, enrolled in design school, and still learning a foreign language. I decided to try and do it again, quit my job, and freelance.
In retrospect, it was the craziest thing I have ever done, besides scuba diving without formal training, but that is a story for another time.

Terrified about the prospect of communicating professionally in a language other than my own, I set out to call companies from the local Yellow Pages armed only with a portfolio of illustrations. I made hundreds of calls. I learned how hard freelancing was when the bills started to accumulate, and there was no work in view and no money in the bank.

What was I doing wrong? I had a killer portfolio, a lot of talent, and all the time in the world, I had trained myself to talk professionally.

Now I realize I should have considered all the aspects of the business I was embarking on, the ones the business plan did not include, such as how I would live in the next six months to a year while building a clientele. How could I convince clients I was qualified to handle their logo, brochure, or advertisement by showing them only beautiful illustrations in my portfolio? Yes, I had talent, but How could I persuade clients I was the right designer for their project with the handicap of a foreign accent and knowing little about the country’s business culture?

Yet, I made the rounds, talked to people, and felt proud of myself, but all of that did not pay the bills.

Before you decide to quit your day job and become a freelancer, I would like you to consider the following:

1 Why do you want to freelance?

The answer to this question can vary. You can earn more money, have more free time, be the one making the decisions, become famous, have prestige, spend more time with your family, be in control of the design process, or move to Bermuda.

Whatever the reason, you have to have one. If it is making more money, yes, you can achieve that. But making $1000 on one project that takes you weeks to create and then not having another project waiting at the end may put you at a significant financial disadvantage. So, you better have a plan for how you will acquire continual work and what you need to become more productive.

Working as an illustrator for an ad agency and discovering the high price tag they attached to my work made me realize I could make more money as a freelancer. I expected getting those projects to be manageable. I got excited when I got my first project, but I went months without work. Working as a freelance designer means you work on your own, for different clients, on a project-by-project basis, and you better make sure you continue getting more work.

2 Make sure you have enough financial backup.

Consider quitting your job once you have enough financial stability to do so. Experts say that you should have at least six months of financial backup. Nothing could be more accurate than this. That means having enough money in the bank to cover your rent, food, gas, and utilities while you replenish and grow your business for the following six months. There’s nothing more disheartening than running out of money before a new client or project shows up. I gave new meaning to the term starving artist. I remember the happiness I experienced getting a new project and bringing home the check. The rejoicing lasted only a day or two until I deposited the money in our bank account. The money would immediately disappear amid past-due bills. Another way to mitigate this is to have a patron, a client, or a customer that will give you continual work.

3 When is the right time to start freelancing?

When should you start freelancing? Before school, after school, after work, during work? As I said above, wait to quit your job. I know it sounds redundant, but this is the best advice I can offer you.

The right time to start freelancing is when you have another way to make a living while developing your clientele. Clients will come and go, and you will need help to replace those who left you.

4 Consider all aspects of freelancing, even the ones not in your business plan.

Competition

I’m not talking about making a list of A to Z of competitors. I’m discussing ensuring competitors don’t push you aside and take your clients. Or trick you into giving them yours, like the guy who became very friendly with me, invited me to his house, showed me the fancy equipment he bought with ‘his success’ business, and offered the names of a couple of people he knew. A few weeks later, he told me, ” He had been generous and had given me leads, and in his view, I was already making over $200K in business that year anyway, and I had to share with him.”

Work Load

Once success began in my freelance business, I quickly worked late hours, even all-nighters, to keep up with demand and deadlines. I quickly found out I did not own my time. I had to fulfill the projects. I found some help in one of my students, who agreed to work with me as an entry-level production artist, adding to the complexity of my business. Now, I had to worry about having enough assignments to justify her employment, tax withholding, unemployment insurance, payroll, and collecting in time to pay her wages. I also spent most of my time wearing a manager’s hat and designing less and less.

Taxes and Bookkeeping

Whether successful, you must deal with the Internal Revenue Service -IRS. I hope you have foreseen the need for accounting and allocated in your business plan section for this. I did my bookkeeping and taxes for many years until growth forced me to hire an accountant. I can tell you they are costly. Accountants charge like lawyers by the paper they have to fill out, but they can help you find ways to keep your hard-earned money.

Time

One of the myths about freelancing is that you can have more time to pursue what you want when you want; to a certain extent, it is true. But I can tell you from experience that freelancing can quickly consume your time. I spent 30 years building a business and spending less time vacationing. I don’t remember myself at the beach enjoying a margarita. I remember working until 3 or 4 in the morning or missing family events to fulfill deadlines.

Another activity that will take your time is meeting with clients and meeting with vendors. Clients will want to hog your time if you let them. Some clients will want to come to your office or house often and chat longer. They might have this belief that they own you. The same goes for vendors. You’ll need to inform vendors that you are available by appointment only or during a specific time. Otherwise, they will appear at your door whenever they feel like it. Remember, they want to sell you or upsell you their products or services.

To freelance effectively, you must have a plan to manage your time. Mine was and still is to try to do the most focused work early in the morning, between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m. Early in the morning is when I am the most productive, and there’s no one to distract me, no phone calls, and no urge to check emails or text.

Other time management strategies include setting a block of time in your day for answering calls and answering emails, production, meetings, research, and so on.

One strategy I tried, and it worked for me, was to work only four days a week and use a day to pursue other interests, such as painting, sports, or work on other non-design-related projects. Some designers I know use the extra weekend day to travel and recharge before returning to freelance. A tremendous urge to resist when you are freelancing is to work all the time. If you follow this path, you might end up hating what you do or quickly getting burned out.

Always remember the reason why you are a freelancer.

Portfolio

Your portfolio measures who you are as a designer or Illustrator. Clients, consciously or unconsciously, will want to see samples of similar projects as to what they are using. If you are a versatile artist like me, who can illustrate and design, you will have to edit the content of your portfolio with more care and cater to the prospect. Leave home the bikini girl illustration, as beautiful as she might be. Prospective clients will judge your intentions with an image showing some skin unless you approach a lingerie store or a bathing suit manufacturer. Trust me; I’ve been there and done that.

Try to show how you can integrate illustration into your design rather than just a series of pretty pictures. Otherwise, clients will label you either an illustrator or a designer, which could be the last you hear from them.

Wolves and sharks

I am talking about other freelancers wanting to take your client or the guy offering you heaven and earth to become their partner. I experienced this myself many times. First, the wolves: Let me tell you my story; I had established a good relationship with the art director of a big camping equipment company, illustrating their camping gear catalog. It was an excellent continual project. They would need illustrations regularly, and I was there to supply the demand. The art director was the most outstanding person I encountered as a client, so I put all my trust in the relationship. One morning, I got a call from the art director, asking me to help this person he would send my way. Sure enough, a few minutes later, I got their call, and they asked if they could come over and discuss a project they were doing for my client. Within thirty minutes, they were knocking at my door. I did not suspect anything until they started to pressure me to share the software I owned to produce the illustrations. They wanted to “Trade” software; they would give me their software in exchange for mine, they suggested. The pressure was so high that I gave in to their request to get them to go away. And away they went, not only with my software but with my client also. That was the last time I heard from the art director.

Some clients will be loyal and continue working with you if you give them what they want. Other clients will go with anybody knocking at their door with the lowest price.

And finally, sharks: Beware of people offering you to partner with them. I had the experience of partnering with a guy who offered me heaven, a portion of ownership of a larger marketing company. Soon after signing the partnership contract, I discovered he was a swindler, a liar, and a thief. Luckily, I found out within the first year of ‘partnership’ that this guy was stealing from our partners and clients. For him, I was just an instrument of credibility to get to my client’s pocket. It took losing my clients, six months of unemployment, and a lawyer to help me get rid of a non-compete to realize I should never do this again.

Knowledge

Ensure you understand the ‘ins and outs’ of the business, the software, and the production processes, especially if you are freelancing design or illustration. One mistake new freelancers make is starting work without enough knowledge of the software used to produce the projects or knowing enough about preparing work for printing. I made this mistake often early on in my career. I had an idea of many of the software’s capabilities, and again, I was adventurous in getting jobs for which I needed more experience. It would have been easier if I had a better understanding of the mechanics of the software. I’m talking about 3d, Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator software.

5 Never give up.

Once you are working on your own, at one point, the temptation to go back to work, especially if the project flow is low, will be great. Your spouse, significant other, family, or friends might try to convince you that a full-time job might be better for you; there will be financial stability, consistent paychecks, and no collectors at the door. Remember, you will have to sign with blood, and it will be.

Trust me. It will not be better. I’ve mistakenly accepted a full-time job twice in my career. Both times, the job turned sour, and I ended up penniless in the same alley with no clients. And oh boy, oh boy, both times, I felt like Sysiphus, rolling the rock back uphill to the top of the mountain yet again. In retrospect, I should have stayed the course. Things would have improved if I had stuck with it for a few more days or weeks. But, of course, the pressure to pay bills was tremendous. Both times, I had to build clients the hard way.

In conclusion, my advice before you decide on freelancing is to establish a plan for what you will do if this scenario or that scenario happens. Remember, you will be in control, not someone else, so you will have your rock to push. It will not be easy, but it is your rock and no one else’s. Do your best, don’t give up, and you will succeed. This I learned from Donald Trump. I suggest you read his book Trump Never Give Up: How I Turned My Biggest Challenges into Success.

Let me know what you think. Have you had the same experience? Do you have more questions? Let me know in the comments.

Live with purpose.