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Why freelancing is good
Freelancing offers flexibility and works on your terms, whether that’s to be able to organise work around family more efficiently, work in a way that works for mental health or physical issues, or simply because you’re tired of the daily corporate or public sector grind and you’re ready to work on your terms, not someone else’s.
Whether you’re a graphic designer or a wellness coach, a copywriter or a proofreader, an illustrator or a business mentor, working from home can open up a door to a different way of living and working that’s beneficial to both your health and your mental well-being over time.
However, it’s not an easy decision to make and there are many factors to consider. Today, we’re here to answer the question “If you could go back to the start of your freelancing journey, what if anything, would you do differently?” as part of a new fortnightly series I’m doing on answering new/or experienced freelancer questions.
So, what would I do differently?
Where do I begin?
I think in the main, there are a couple of things I want to focus on here and that is allowing yourself to make mistakes, and you can only do that by learning from doing, and secondly, not relying on content mills and bidding sites for too long.
If I had my time over again, these are two areas I would focus on and improve upon and would do very differently.
Where to find freelance work? - it's definately NOT on a bidding site or a content mill
When I first started I had come straight from an MA in Creative Writing/Practice following 10 years in the NHS. I had no marketing experience and I had no previous experience in an agency. This is important, although many will tell you it doesn’t matter. I had no idea how to market myself and the importance of consistency and repetition.
If you can’t get any agency experience then do a marketing or business course. Many copywriters especially, work in-house off and on throughout their career, it can be a great learning experience.
People will either not see your posts the first time around or not respond for a variety of different reasons. Some do what others call ‘lurking,’ so there’s always someone reading your post. Because there are so many people marketing their products and services it’s important to understand the fundamental importance of repetition and repeating your marketing strategy consistently.
Without consistent marketing, you will soon fade into the background. It wasn’t as over-saturated as it is now with freelancers. Today there are more than ever, so you must come up with a plan, and even if you’re more of a spontaneous poster (like I am!) have some sort of an idea of what you’re hoping to achieve in your content and where you’re going with it.
I had some knowledge and experience of social media at the start and used both Twitter and Facebook and occasionally Instagram. I’d built a website, but I don’t think I realised how important it was to stay in people’s faces, the use of the word “repurpose” wasn’t popular then, or I certainly didn’t see it used from 2013 when I started up until 2021/22.
Those who start with an agency are at an advantage, - because you can take former clients with you. Your name will also be well known to those you’ve worked with before when you were employed at an agency. You also have valuable marketing and content/copywriting experience (this is aimed mostly at writers but it can apply to graphic designers, illustrators, proofreaders and copyeditors equally), so you’ll be well-versed in certain techniques and how to put yourself out there.
I didn’t. And I learned as I went along, and this is okay, and many people do it this way - successfully. However, a lot depends on how confident you are. If you think you can ride the storm being a bit clueless, go forth and prosper. Many do.
You can network and join communities as you go along and ask questions from those you grow to trust over time as experts in their line of work and for being honest and helpful. Here, I’d say be careful who you place your trust in and don’t confide in those who will exploit your early naivety and propensity for making mistakes at the very beginning.
What did I do? I joined bidding sites and worked for the odd content mill to build my portfolio. I joined People Per Hour and Elance, which later became Upwork. Both are useful at the beginning of your career if you don’t have a portfolio and/or you’ve worked with clients early on and you’ve signed an NDA and need testimonials - fast.
The only disadvantage with People per Hour (PPH) and others of their ilk, is that you get testimonials you either don’t want on your website (because - reputation) or they usually ask for an NDA on these types of bidding sites anyway. Or they leave useless one-sentence testimonials or forget and move on.
They also have a bad reputation for getting something done cheaply, as do Fiverr and Upwork. You would often see entrepreneurs suggesting to others that they go on a bidding site to get the work done quickly and cheaply, so they’re not renowned for quality work.
You didn’t get paid right away and had to wait until the work was approved, which is okay, but you didn’t get a deposit - this would be kept in what was known as an ‘Escrow account.’ If they didn’t like the work, you wouldn’t even get the deposit. Their reasons for not liking the work were arbitrary and it was mentally draining and stressful.
It pays to start with savings, but savings don’t last forever, and you need a steady cash flow to keep you going. Therefore your time on these types of sites does need to be time-bound while you look for clients off the site. I didn’t look hard enough or network properly in those early days, at least not near enough as I should have done to get work.
This is largely because I got caught up in a cycle of dependence where once one job was done another would come up, or I’d apply for one and I’d get it because I’d need the money. But of course, I had to wait for the money before I got paid and so on and so on.
Breaking free was hard because I just couldn’t seem to find the time to find clients offsite - and I got few word-of-mouth referrals because I wasn’t networking enough.
I didn’t spend as much time on Upwork (Elance) because it was the American version of PPH and although some jobs were better paid than the British site, it was still much of the same kind of treatment, and so much time was lost searching for suitable jobs that it became quite grim.
Content mills were those where you applied for jobs and then wrote blogs or small sections of content, or possibly product descriptions and then waited to be paid. You wouldn’t always know who the client was and you’d just liaise with the content mill. As with the bidding site, it was dire. Too much time doing these types of work made my life hard, and it took at least 3 years out of my business I’ll never get back.
I eventually broke away, but my advice would be - IF you can, stay away from them and build up a network, join a community where you can liaise with like-minded individuals who will let you know if any suitable work comes up.
Word-of-mouth referrals can often be the most lucrative and reliable type of client - they have been for me and can be a great fit for you because the person referring you will know the type of work you do, and what niche area you specialise in. They’ll also have a better understanding of your personality after spending time getting to know you. In an online community, you will gel with certain personalities who understand each other and share the same values and ambitions, find them.
Also, seek out people who are a little more ahead of you and emulate them, what did they do to be successful? Don’t be around those who will enjoy bringing you down. I often got involved with groups that didn’t serve me or my introverted personality, and I’ve learnt from that the hard way.
Learning from doing and making mistakes
Of course, it’s all very well going on about learning your craft aka marketing, before you start. But you’ll still have to start at some point. You can only do that by doing, and you learn from doing, and while you’re learning, you make mistakes.
Mistakes will be the best teacher of all. People don’t always talk about it that way, but look around and see how many people are talking about it now, either on a podcast or on social media.
We went from hitting the ground running and powering through to six figures to making mistakes and struggling through the most volatile economy we’ve known for decades. But mistakes are and have always been the best way to learn regardless of how the economy is and whether or not AI is looming over us.
There’s an article “The Effort Effect” about a piece of research undertaken by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, and yes the article’s old, written in 2007 in The Stanford Magazine, but trust me, it’s worth a read.
Her research, which formed part of her PhD dissertation at Yale, was to observe a group of children, one in which half were encouraged to ‘chalk up errors’ to insufficient effort and encouraged to go on and keep trying, while the other half weren’t. This second group showed no improvement, fell apart and did not recover quickly.
The first group eventually thrived and learnt from their failures. She continued to do more work at the University of Illinois where children were encouraged to think out loud as they faced problem-solving tasks they were given.
Rather than allowing each mistake you make to be seen as a personal threat, see each failure as a challenge. Think growth mindset and look for opportunities to learn and not a closed one, where any mistakes are seen as a negative trait. At the end of the day, we all learn from making mistakes and they are not a sign of our failings.
So, learn by doing and starting, and from making mistakes. In the beginning, I was so afraid of failure and making mistakes that everyone would see them as a sign of my stupidity. I often didn’t do anything and became stunted in my ability to learn and take risks. That was largely down to my lack of confidence, poor mindset and lack of self-esteem.
Build your confidence, learn about improving your mindset, and be less afraid of mistakes, but try not to repeat them.
So that’s it for this week. Learn from doing and making mistakes and don’t spend too much time on bidding sites or content mills at the beginning of your freelancing journey, unless you absolutely have to.
Further reading:
Also, try Paul Graham’s essays, some are short, some long, but they are well worth your time. Some are old, some more recent. Paul is an English computer scientist, essayist, entrepreneur, investor, and author.
So, do YOU have a question I can answer next time? Why not email me at - gillianjones@gilllianjonescopywriting.net or message me on LinkedIn?
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