Setting Your Standards as a Freelancer: A Few Suggestions
Having standards is important when you’re trying to find and work with clients on your own. It’s surprisingly tempting not to stick to your standards: a quick project that you wouldn’t normally take can look pretty appealing if you’re having a slow month. But sticking to your guns can be important in more ways than one. If you take that problematic job, not only are you doing something that you don’t want to do, but you’re also likely to hand in work that you know isn’t as good as you could do. Even worse, that sub-standard job can take up the time you need to find higher paying clients, sticking you in a position where you can’t afford to move forward.
The Perils and Plusses of a Persistent Project
As a freelancer, I’ve tackled plenty of projects. Not all have been enjoyable, naturally, but I’ve been able to keep a steady flow of work. I don’t think every job has to be perfect, and as long as I’m making good money and maintaining my freedom, I’m generally satisfied with my career.
While I’ve worked regularly for some of the same clients, I have never had to work on one project that required multiple weeks of single-client focus. It’s a totally different beast. Not only can it be unpleasant, but it can uproot your whole vibe.
Finding Jobs vs. Finding a Job
Earlier this year Dale Dauten’s “Corporate Curmudgeon” column noted that “We have entered the Post-Employee Economy. There still will be organizations, and there still will be work to be done, but it’s time to understand that the concept of ‘employee,’ as we know it, is obsolete.”
He recently revisited this topic, and noted that the U.S. economy continues to progress toward his Post-Employee paradigm. Companies aren’t hiring, they’re downsizing. And they’re wringing as much work as they can out of their remaining staff.
Knowing What You’re Not
We all know how many responsibilities a freelancer has and how many different hats we have to wear (client work, invoicing and finances, marketing, customer service, etc.). It can be easy to forget that we all have strengths and weaknesses because we spend so much time trying to be good at everything.
In order to do our best work and to maximize efficiency and productivity, we need to recognize what we do well (and what we don’t) and avoid trying to be all things to all people.
From what I see, our weaknesses can be broken down into two categories: 1) specific types of projects, and 2) the various tasks of freelancing. On this first point, most of us have a particular type of service that we specialize in. A designer/developer may be best at designing high-end flash-based sites, and may not be so skilled at designing an attractive website with a minimalist approach, or vice versa. Freelance writers will typically have certain topics or types of writing that they are more experienced with, and so on.
On the second point, we all have certain aspects of freelancing that we excel at, and others that are more of a struggle. For example, you may have a hard time with keeping your invoices and finances organized, but you may excel at dealing directly with clients.
Regardless of what our strengths and weaknesses are, we need to recognize them and realize when we’re not able to do an effective job on a particular project or a specific aspect of freelancing. Continue Reading
