Habits of Successful Freelancers: Advice for Success

Introduction

I've been working almost exclusively as a freelance computer consultant since high school, which was back in the early 1980s. During the few years spanning the end of high school through the beginning of college I worked during the summer, and for my last couple of college years I worked full time during the day and attended school at night.

 

While most of my friends and colleagues went on to get staff jobs, I remained an independent contractor. I liked the flexibility and independence, and it continues to work out well for me.

 

To a large degree freelancing goes against the corporate grain, which means it is not for everybody. The main differences between freelancers and staffers are:

 

• Freelancers have to continuously market themselves (more on this later)

 

• When companies tighten their belts, freelancers are often the first to be let go (although occasionally this rule works the other way around); uncertainty is always around the corner

 

• Freelancers get little to no benefits from their clients (e.g. health insurance, retirement plans, stock options)

 

• Freelancers are often not allowed to take advantage of employee-only perks and resources (e.g. the company cafeteria, employee discounts)

 

• Freelancers have to file quarterly estimated taxes and usually pay more in taxes than do staffers

 

• Freelancers' incomes are often highly variable and depend to a large degree on how much work they are able to get and how frequently their clients pay

 

Given these disadvantages, why would anybody freelance? Some of the advantages of freelancing are:

 

• Freelancers often have a lot of free time on their hands (e.g. between projects or when a project is going slowly)

 

• Freelancers can usually make their own hours, especially if they work from home

 

• Freelancers are usually paid well (although this depends a lot on your abilities and your value to your client; more on this later)

 

• Freelancers are often treated better than employees (although this depends to a large degree on the environment and reasons you were hired)

 

• Staff meetings and other employee-only events are often optional for freelancers; sometimes they're treated like employees, other times they are explicitly banned from an event, and other times it's up to them whether they want to attend a certain event

 

• Virtually every expense related to your business can be a tax deduction

 

Generally speaking, if you prefer the stability of a regular paycheck and an office environment, you'll want a staff job. But if you can weather unsteady work and prefer to have a variety of clients then consulting may be for you.

 

For those of you not ready to jump feet-first into freelancing, one option is to get a staff job and freelance on the side (although you should make sure your staff job allows you to freelance on the side). Another option is to work a staff job for a while and slowly transition into freelancing.

Full-Time? Part-Time?

There are two basic types of freelance gigs: full-time and part-time. Full-time gigs are pretty much what they sound like: you're on-site at a client's office, usually 9-5, just like a staffer. These types of gigs can be very cushy because the income is usually steady and plentiful. Part-time gigs take less of your time, which means at the end of the day you'll walk home with less money than at a full-time gig.

 

Because a part-time gig can take anywhere from practically no time at all (e.g. an hour a week) to nearly full-time, you may need to get more than one. Not only is this more difficult but the hardest part may be juggling multiple projects to keep them from conflicting.

 

Assuming you're taking the plunge, whether full- or part-time, here are the next steps towards getting your next consulting gig:

Marketing Yourself Via Repeat Customers and Word-of-Mouth Advertising

It can be difficult to survive as an independent consultant because you have to spend a significant amount of time bringing in new projects. It's hard enough to keep working steadily even with people occasionally calling you with new projects; it can be almost impossible if you have to hunt them down. And once you have a project you have to spend time managing it (and the client).

 

Your overall goal is to build and maintain your reputation. Repeat customers and word-of-mouth recommendations are your best advertising, although you may want to resort to traditional marketing as well, especially if opportunities are not presenting themselves:

Online

 

• Web Site: Develop a web site that showcases your talents. This is probably the first thing you should do because once it's finished it will continue to serve as a free advertisement. Consider including at minimum your resume, a portfolio, and a short bio about what type of work you do. Remember, your web site is often the first thing people will see with your name on it so you'll want to make sure it looks sharp; there's nothing more embarrassing than a computer professional with a lousy web site.

 

• Job Boards: Cruise the job boards (monster.com, dice.com, etc.). In addition to the big nationwide ones you should be able to find any number of local job listing sites as well.

 

• Mailing Lists: Participate in mailing lists that cater to your specialties. In addition to learning new things you should be looking to build a reputation as a knowledgeable person in a given area. This doesn't involve deception; you should give out advice when you can, and keep your mouth shut and learn when you can't.

In person

 

• SIGs: Attend local user group meetings and networking events. Often potential clients attend such meetings to find a qualified consultant.

 

• Contacts: Call or email your current and previous clients, friends, and acquaintances. Tell them your situation (you're available for work) without sounding desperate; nobody wants to feel like they're being guilted into giving you a sympathy project.

 

• Recruiters: I purposely listed this at the end because it's usually a last resort for me but that's just my personal preference. I'll tell you a secret: of the many, many dozens of recruiters I've been in touch with during the past 25 years, I have gotten only one job from them. I got all the rest of my jobs through networking on my own.

 

Other methods to market yourself include:

 

• Advertising: Advertise locally (e.g. put an ad in local papers). This is often a last resort since it's expensive and you can usually get more bang for your buck online but you may find this works for you depending on who reads the local papers. Also, if you have specialized knowledge you may want to place an ad in a paper read by that clientele. E.g. if you know about plumbing and want to build web sites for plumbers, advertise in publications that plumbers are likely to read.

 

• Volunteer: Do some pro bono work. Nothing builds your reputation faster than completing a project for an organization that needs your services, especially when it's for a cause you believe in.

 

• Educate yourself: It's vital that you keep your skills up-to-date. Spend some time digging into that new language, utility, operating system platform or environment you've never had time to fully explore. Your goal should be to get to the next level of expertise. Doing so will make you that much more marketable.

 

• Build something cool. Use that new skill you just learned to build a cool web site or application and give it away for free. If it's useful, too, so much the better.

The Habits

Most of these habits apply equally to staffers but they apply particularly to freelancers:

 

• Build a reputation. Cultivate a reputation for being honest, knowledgeable and available. Those would be the words I would use if I had to distill this article down into three words.

 

• Make yourself available. Make yourself available to your clients (and potential clients) by phone and email. I usually give out my home number (which doubles as my work number) and when I'm not at home I forward it to my cell phone. I give out only one number (my home phone) so clients only ever have to dial one number to reach me.

 

• Be timely. Return your clients' calls and emails in a timely manner. I made this a separate item because it's an important one. I try to pick up the phone as often as humanly possible because nothing is more frustrating to a client than never reaching you on the phone the first time. Even if you're busy, it's more reassuring to your client if you tell them that you'll call them back in a few minutes than if they leave you a voice message and have no idea whether you'll get back to them in five minutes or five days. Clients who abuse the privilege simply end up getting my voice mail if they call me more often than necessary, although in practice I almost never have to screen my calls. But I still get back to them in a timely manner.

 

• Provide information. Make it easy for your clients to switch to another consultant. This may sound crazy but the harder you try to lock your clients into using your services the more they will resent not being able to switch easily. That means giving your clients any and all information they might need to switch consultants up front (e.g. usernames, passwords), i.e. don't make them hunt you down for it.

 

• Be honest. Don't be a know-it-all. Even the most clueless client has an inkling of when they're being buttered up by somebody who fancies themselves the next Bill Gates.

 

• Be humble. The correlation to the above: don't be afraid to admit when you don't know something. Remember, you're not being paid to know everything; you're being paid because you have the ability to find out things that you don't know. Besides, a little humility goes a long way towards building your reputation as being honest.

Deciding What to Charge

There are many options to consider when deciding on a fee schedule. Some clients prefer paying a fixed cost (and indeed some projects will lend themselves to a fixed cost) while others prefer an hourly or per diem rate. I usually give my clients the choice, with the caveat that a fixed cost is available only if they can sufficiently spec out the project (either on their own or with my help) that I can give them an estimate.

 

If you're charging an hourly rate you'll want to consider different rates depending on the nature of the work, and even which client you're doing it for. For example, your rate for general consulting (not programming) may be $50/hr while your rate for programming may be $75/hr. Your corporate rate may be $100/hr while your rate for non-profits may be $60/hr. (I'm pulling these numbers out of a hat; you'll have to decide what works for you.)

 

If you can't pin down the details of a project sufficiently to come up with a reasonable time estimate, perhaps the client will agree to pay you for, say, eight hours (at, say, $40/hr) to come up with a spec that will let you give a more accurate estimate.

Travel and other expenses

I don't do much traveling that I can bill directly to my clients, nor do I have many other expenses that I can bill directly to them, but your situation may be different. Make sure to specify exactly what the client can expect to pay you for travel time and other expenses.

Free estimates

Some clients want free estimates. An estimate can contain many details of how the project could or should get done, so it is in the client's best interest to get a free estimate. It may even provide them with enough of a blueprint that they can either hire somebody more cheaply or do it themselves (because you already created their blueprint for free).

 

Not every client is expecting a free estimate, nor are those expecting a free estimate looking to rip you off by taking your estimate and walking away.

 

If you aren't willing to invest the time into writing an estimate without compensation, consider requesting payment for some portion of the estimate. For example, you might give them an hour of your time for free, followed by four hours (at, say, $50/hr) to write the estimate. Then, even if they decide not to hire you, at least you'll have gotten paid to write the estimate.

Contracts: Get it in writing

Regardless of what you and your client agree on, you should write a contract that describes what services you will provide and how you will be compensated, as well as any other conditions you agreed on with the client. If your client is an individual or small business they will likely have no issues with your contract; if your client is a medium-sized or large business it's likely their lawyers will turn your contract upside-down or even write their own. In any case, your contract should mention at minimum:

 

• What the fee schedule will be
• Details of what you will accomplish (and what work is not included)
• Expected milestones, dates, and conditions
• Terms of future work

 

A contract can also serve as a vehicle for negotiating the project. As you and your client pass it back and forth you can each add details; once it's sufficiently fleshed out you can begin work.

Dropping a Client

While I get along with the vast majority of my clients, on occasion I've had to drop some of them. Sometimes I drop them for non-payment. Other times I drop them because they're just too much of a pain to deal with. For example, somebody who can never decide what they want is simply not worth dealing with, nor is somebody who is never satisfied with what they have or somebody who isn't willing to take my advice.

 

Hopefully you'll never get to the point that you'll have to drop a client but if you do you should make it clear to them why you are dropping them. It may be obvious to you (e.g. they owe me money!) but you'd be surprised how often clients can be clueless about this sort of thing, especially when they are part of a larger bureaucracy. Often one department (finance) doesn't know what the other (the person you deal with) is doing and what seems like their conspiracy to mistreat you can be attributable more to incompetence than malice.

 

If you do your job right, problematic clients can be weeded out before you get anywhere significant with them, and hopefully before you put in any billable hours.

Conclusion

As in romance, the types of clients you'll attract will be largely a reflection of yourself. I know some freelancers who always seem to be getting deadbeat clients, and others who always seem to attract clients who ask for the impossible. While it's easy to blame some of that on bad luck, certainly a significant portion of the blame lies with the freelancer for allowing themselves to get into such a situation in the first place. A good freelancer will put measures in place to protect themself (e.g. provide a written contract), sense when a situation has the potential to go bad (e.g. client deviating from the terms of the contract), and learn from their experiences when things do go downhill.