As I have now been a freelancer for a good 4 years, I felt it was time to compile a list of the biggest mistakes I, and I imagine plenty of others like me have made. By no means an exhaustive list, I’ve aimed to include the more important errors aimed at people wanting to go freelance. Of course we all learn from our mistakes but hopefully you’ll be able to avoid a few of these!
1. Know what you’re worth.
When you first start out, there are never enough leads, so I always found myself taking everything that comes along. A lot of your first leads (and a few later) will be people fishing through multiple freelancers just like yourself. Never assume they’ve only emailed you! There are exceptions but if you’re too cheap they’ll run away, better to overprice than underprice, then at least you’ll get paid what you’re worth and the work won’t suffer because you don’t think you’re getting enough.
2. Get your taxes in order.
Becoming a freelancer means (unless you have your own accountant/FA) you’ll have to document ALL your incomings and outgoings, from a UK standpoint you can use any assets you’ve bought (like PC/software) to lower your tax bracket. I just use Office Accounting and add entries everytime I buy something related to work or get paid. Register as self employed with HMRC ASAP, there is a penalty (of £100 I think) if you leave it too late. Yes taxes are a pain in the ass, no way around it.
3. Promote promote promote.
I initially worked with a partner in a another company and the first thing we did was order thousands of branded business cards and went round our local town asking every shop along the way if they needed a website. Use blogs, social networking, CSS showcase websites (there are now thousands of these). Leads won’t appear from nowhere, your website is your shopfront, use it and publicise it.
4. Sort out a pricing strategy.
In my old company we hadn’t set out any kind of pricing strategy and so when clients asked for more details (such as price etc) we guestimated. Work out what you’re spending and how much you need to earn, add some more and use that as a basis.
5. Get organised, especially your time.
As a freelancer, on many occasions I’ve worked into the early hours, whilst sometimes this is essential to meet a deadline, it’s important to give yourself working hours, and if you’re working per hour, keep track of hours spent working. It can often be hard to give yourself a break, take weekends off, have a decent lunchbreak etc. So be strict with yourself and your clients, you’re only human after all 
.
6. Recognise a bad client before working with them.
Eventually it becomes second nature to recognise a potential client that will be difficult, you can find out more about identifying clients here: 12 Breeds of client and how to recognise them
7. Stick with what you do best.
You WILL get potential clients asking you to do something you know you cannot do, don’t risk it, it’ll be sloppy work you won’t put in your portfolio and lead to an unhappy client. If you’re a frontend web designer stick to that, you can always learn other skills along the way. If you try and take on too much it’ll be damaging to your rep, brand, work and your client.
8. Avoid spec work.
When I first started, money incomings were slow, so I’d happily do a bit of spec work. I ended up making a bit of money, but the amount of work triples, and more on often than not you’ll get nothing for the work you provide. Better to get a few local clients to put on your portfolio and if your work and promotion is good, you’ll find more work. Most clients I’ve found to be pretty consistent which is good, I know what they like after working with them for so long. This means they’ll stay with you, so keep them happy!
Fri, Sep 4, 2009
General Web Design