Every Path is Different.
Freelancing evokes different emotions for everyone: nervous, free, curious, empowered, lonely, exposed, overwhelmed, eager, the list goes on. Experiencing a roller coaster of emotions can be a good thing. I don’t know about you but when I’m feeling nervous, vulnerable, or anxious this typically means that I’m stretching myself and providing opportunities for growth… most of the time, sometimes it’s because I’m prioritizing the wrong activity.
This post is about my experience in the first 6 months of leaving a full-time job to full-time freelancing. This isn’t a guide or framework for unlocking your true potential or hacking your way to financial freedom.
I will share what has helped me, the lessons I’ve learned and what my experience has been since “abandoning” steady pay. I use quotations there because it’s important to understand that at the start of your freelance career sure, you likely won’t have guaranteed income but that’s not to say that in 6 months’ time, or sooner, or later, you won’t be able to achieve a guaranteed monthly-income that suits your lifestyle.
The 5 Steps:
Step 1: Safety Net
How much do you make a month? How much do you spend and how much do you save? These are crucial questions to answer before you make the leap. If your monthly expenses are $3,000, you’re going to want to have as many months’ worth of expenses saved up to make you comfortable before leaving. That number will be different for everyone. Based on your abilities, how long do you think it will take you to land your first few jobs?
Let’s take my scenario, my monthly expenses were around $2,500, my experience consisted of online learning: 100+ hours of courses and countless podcasts and blogs relating to my frield. No professional experience or degree. I felt comfortable with a $7,000 safety net and I decided to move back into my parent’s house for 4 months, cutting my expenses down to $700/month, before finding a place in another city again.
Step 2: Learn
Read books, take courses, listen to podcasts, whatever you do make sure that you’re digesting information from people that you look up to. Trust your intuition and only take advice from people more experienced than you in the field you are jumping into. If you’re going into web design and your friend who has never been a web designer or dedicated their full energy into becoming one, their words of caution about how “hard it is to penetrate that industry” aren’t nearly as valuable as the woman with 5 years experience designing stunning websites for small businesses, launching her own brand and teaching others how to do the same.
For three years, every winter I would take online courses related to digital marketing because I knew that’s what I wanted to do. Eventually, that broad subject led me to copywriting which really stuck with me. So I found copywriting and then I started exploring different copywriting podcasts before I discovered the “Filthy Rich Writer Podcast” hosted by Nicki Krawczyk and Kate Sitarz. I listen to that podcast religiously all summer during my regular working day. That fall I joined Nicki’s course “The Comprehensive Copywriting Academy” where I continue to learn and grow every day.
Step 3: Define Your Why
Why do you want to become a freelancer, what are you working toward? For me, I want flexibility during my work day, I want to be able to choose the projects I work on, and carve out time chunks in my days to do whatever I like, be that exercise, music, reading or whatever. Most importantly, I want to work from anywhere.
As I write this blog post, I’m in the passenger seat as my partner and I drive through the badlands of North Dakota on our way to Alberta where she has accepted a new position. I’m grateful that I took these steps 5 months ago to be in a position now to pack my laptop knowing I have projects lined up for the next 2 months and confidence in my ability to secure more work once we settle in.
So what’s your why? If you’re like me then you’re tired of working for someone else and not having complete control of your time and wage, you have a burning desire to learn and grow and you may not know what the future has in store but you know that you have the ability to define and create the one you envision for yourself.
Bet on yourself.
Step 4: Announce to Your Network
You’ve prepared, saved up, and planted the seed in people’s heads and now it’s time to really get the word out there. You’re going to experience resistance many times in the coming months and in many forms: imposter syndrome, lack of confidence, and comparing yourself to others, whatever the mode of resistance, acknowledge it for what it is and bust through it.
The only way for you to land work is by reaching out to people. The first job I landed was for a popular restaurant in the town I was living in. I loved their food and its quaint vibe. When you went onto their website, it was obvious that it was outdated and they were missing out on potential customers.
I sent an email to the owner as a genuine fan of the restaurant with an idea to help their business. I heard nothing back for a week so the next time I was in for lunch I saw the owner. Butterflies swarmed my stomach, I wasn’t sure how he was going to react but I went for it. I told him that I was the one who emailed him which opened up the conversation. He told me that years ago he has a negative experience with the person who built their original site and felt ripped off and has remained skeptical of these services ever since. He agreed to a meeting where we sat in his shop, had an honest conversation about our goals, and agreed to work with each other.
Since then, cold and warm pitching, networking, and word-of-mouth are how I land projects. As I continue to develop, I learn that the more people I meet, the more people who know what I do, the more jobs come my way.
Step 5: Track
During the first two months of very little income, I’m talking less than $1,000/month, spending habits have to be put in check. It’s time to trim the excess, anything that doesn’t serve you or your business needs to go.
Watch your spending habits like a hawk. If you avoid them, you won’t get on top of them. You need to be fully aware of your financial situation in order to improve it. So log in, organize it, and that every week, two weeks, every month or whatever you need to do to get on top of your budget and plan for the coming months.
Remember, you no longer have health benefits, if that’s something you had at your previous job, and nobody is deducting income tax from your paycheck. It’s time to start drawing from your own invoices and setting money aside for income taxes and any other expenses. If %35 of your paycheck is being allocated to expenses (income tax, benefits, etc..) make sure that you price your services to account for those drawings. The only way to know if your business is making or losing money is to diligently track your income and expenses.
Pro tip from a friend of mine right before I started my freelance business: start with a wage no lower than $50/hour. Boy am I grateful for that advice, I needed that benchmark. Since then I have increased my rates and as a result, my business has been making money since day one.
What do you think of my trajectory, is it similar to yours? Does this make the idea of becoming a freelancer less daunting or more daunting? Drop a comment below.
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