There's one calculation that is helpful, to figure whether you can actually live as a freelancer. I was a freelance photographer back in the 80s, for instance, and it would have helped me immensely to do this little piece of math, but I was young and had no clue.
Figure out what you're gonna charge, on average, per job. Figure out how many jobs at that rate you could conceivably do/finish (depending on time frame) a month. Subtract monthly expenses. Multiply by 12. That's just a quick and dirty reality check, not actual accounting. When the bottom fell out of the photography market, when photos started appearing on CD-ROMs for less than pennies an image, I knew I was destined to lose, no matter what I did, even in best case circumstances. Same for newspaper shooting, killing yourself with long hours, nights and weekends, for something people will throw away every day, if they even see it. No resale value whatsoever. Granted, wedding shooters have benefited from a neo gilded age acceptance of massive charges for wedding photography, a black box combo of both skill and puffery. They make money, and pump the volume in and out the door. The puffery side of the business sort of made me nauseous, as did the feeling that I'd be scamming people out of their money. That's what I get for growing up blue collar. I thought less wealthy people deserved nice wedding pictures too (and fellow grad students, as that was how I made extra money in grad school, doing weddings--if you're working together scraping up beer money, are you going to charge $5K-$10K per wedding? It just felt exploitive, but the shooters who made that shift from the $1K wedding to the $5-$10K wedding got rich--fleecing people, if you ask me). But even if you are in the $5K wedding shooter club, you gotta shoot at least 12 weddings a year to make $60K (before expenses and taxes). The actual shooting takes up the least amount of time in the entire wedding job. But the hard part is, you have to realize that whatever you are wanting to do has to be converted to a unit that multiplies into an annual income. (I applied this test for a friend who was wanting to start a video production service for real estate agents, for instance, and it sobered her up real quick to realize that even pumping the max number of paying jobs in and out the door in a year that any one human could conceivably complete (without relying on subcontractors and increasing expenses), she'd at most be able to clear about $30K a year (a major pay cut for her), for the price she was thinking of charging.) And that's not factoring in a freelancer's dry time between clients, and the fact that there is only so much space in any person's head to give to creative projects at one time, or you have a stress breakdown. Chris On Fri, Jul 25, 2008 at 3:35 PM, Ron Edelen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > There is very little difference between freelancing and having your own > business, especially when you freelance from home. Making the transition is > not hard, but requires you to maintain simple business habits. > > Here's what worked for me. > > 1) Maintaining a killer reputation with the firms (or clients) you previous > freelanced with. Referrals from these contacts are critical to keeping a > flow of work. > > 2) Occasionally take work that you may not like to do, as long as it is > within your ethical boundaries and minimum budgetary needs. This will keep > work flowing in and expand your market/network of clients. > > 3) Use contracts. Protect yourself, your client, and your ability to > represent your work to prospectives. AIGA has a good, free starting point. > Look specifically at the Basic terms and conditions, and Supplement 2: > Interactive-Specific Terms and Conditions. > (http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/standard-agreement) > > 4) Keep up with all the latest trends in advertising/design/marketing. Even > if you are tech-focused and have little interest in campaigns - Starbucks > Ideas for example (www.mystarbucksideas.com), which is no more than a blog > with a rating system - it is good to be able to know the market, the > successful trends, how to apply your knowledge to solutions that have high > ROI probability, and be able to sell (talk it up) your abilities to > prospective clients. > > 5) If you are starting a company, think about working with a business > partner who can add similar or complimentary offerings to your own. This has > been a critical ingredient for me. Your business will grow faster, and you > won't go insane trying to do it. Example: someone who can bounce absurd > client request (good cop - bad cop), share the day-to-day business tasks, > and continually provide alternate perspectives to challenging circumstances. > More often than not, a problem can't be solved by the person who created it. > > You have to weigh the pros-cons between freelance and running your own shop > - of which I will let someone else chime in on. I was told that any new > business won't see profit for first two to five years. This model is > slightly obscured in the internet-service industry, which is relatively low > risk and requires very little overhead. In others words, all you need is a > computer, a few pounds of vanilla-nut coffee, and air conditioning. > > :) Ron > > On Jul 25, 2008, at 2:26 PM, erpdesigner wrote: > >> I'm at the point where I am looking for a job, but also doing a lot of >> contract/freelance work. In regards to the job front I'm not finding what I >> want or I find something and the position gets put on hold. >> >> I'm trying to figure out how to turn my freelance work into a sustainable >> business, something that can provide me with a steady stream of revenue and >> income. When I was younger, I tried freelancing but didn't turn it into a >> sustainable business. I was not charging enough for services nor was I at a >> point where I really understood how to run a business (nor did I really want >> to). >> >> I think the biggest issues for me are 1) marketing myself 2) business >> development and 3) contract rates. >> >> Can anybody share their experience of how they went from freelancer and >> built themselves a business? I'd be interested to hear people's stories. >> What are the pain points, how did you solve them? >> >> -Wendy >> ________________________________________________________________ >> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! >> To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe >> List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines >> List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... 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