Poll: Where in the World Are the Freelancers?
I am constantly amazed with the way the internet shrinks the world around me. I have clients in Australia, India, New Zealand, the US, and here in Canada, and new friends in England and the Philippines.
I don’t get nearly enough work done because I am spending too much time reading the excellent comments (on the excellent posts) from the loyal freelancers here on FreelanceSwitch.
So this got me thinking – where are y’all from?
Poll: Do You Dread the Deadline?
On an article we recently published by Angela Ferraro-Fanning’s called How to Handle a Missed Deadline, some commenters said they had trouble keeping on schedule at times and other said they had never missed a deadline. One of those commenters said: “Am I the only one who finds it difficult to believe that none of you has EVER missed a deadline?”
It’s certainly possible to run a freelancing business where you don’t miss deadlines (barring catastrophes well out of your control like getting hit by a car and ending up in hospital), but it seems freelancers manage their time to varying degrees of success (some I have had the misfortune of working with never meet deadlines). In this week’s poll, we’re interested to see how many freelancers have trouble with deadlines and how many of you have are planning gods. Feel free to elaborate in the comments!
Poll: How Has Economic Downturn Affected Your Business?
In our last Linkswitch, we had a look at a NY Times article on the “self-employed depression.” While it’s true that recent events have made making a living harder for many people who put themselves in the self-employed or freelance category, many freelancers are finding that business is as good as ever. A few days after, we published a piece by Martha Retallick on surviving the economic downturn. It’s clear that the state of the economy is an important issue for freelancers, as tiresome a topic it can get with the media milking it for all it’s worth.
So here’s what we want to know: how many of our readers are doing well despite it all, and how many of you are facing difficulties? Is the depressing and rather biased NY Times piece accurate or just another story written to sell? Cast your vote in the poll and then feel free to vent your economy frustrations in the comments.
Poll: Why Did You Start Freelancing?
There are a whole wide range of reasons why people take up freelancing. Some people are forced into it when they suddenly lose their job or need to make more money than they can otherwise to pay the bills. Others do it so they can take control over various areas of their lives, and there has to be at least one person who freelances purely because it’s only way they can use their skillset in their pajamas (the goal of this poll is to find that person). Let us know why you started freelancing in this week’s poll.
Last Poll: Where are you taking your business?
In the last poll we asked you where you planned to take your freelance business in the future. 1,500 of you have answered at the time of this writing (an awfully round number, don’t you think?). Let’s see what the most popular answers were:
- Expansionist thinking dominates with 33% of you intending to play with passive income and 32% intending to expand your freelance business into a firm, for a total of 65% of respondents who are not satisfied as small-scale service providers.
- A significant minority of 27% of respondents intend to continue their freelance businesses as they are — small-scale solo operations. That’s still four times the number of people who are using freelancing as a gateway to a Real Job, which came last at 7% of respondents (or 103 people).
- The Other option was used only 17 times, but the bulk of these responses simply listed a combination of two or more of the first three options.
The 2007 Global Freelancer Survey – It’s On It’s Way!!!
So what is The 2007 Global Freelancer Survey you ask? Well, it’s a survey that will reveal how we as freelancers are doing. We’ll be able to gauge things like how much money freelancers are making, how we work and if we’re happy with our lifestyle. Best of all you’ll be able to compare how you are pricing yourself with others around the world judging by country, by industry, by experience and expertise. It’s going to make for excellent reading! Continue Reading
On the Side or All the Way?
Freelancing on the side while working a regular 9-5 job is both a handy way to get your freelancing business started as well as a useful trick for earning extra cash without the stress of giving up your day job. For myself, doing the odd job here and there was how I started even thinking about freelancing. As it became obvious that there was enough work to keep me afloat I gave my old employer a ‘thank you very much and see ya later’ and off I went to full time freelancing freedom. Here are some of the pros and cons of moonlighting on the side that I found during my time:
What’s Great About Freelancing on the Side
- You Get to Test the Waters
Giving up the security of your day job can be a bit frightening. When you work for someone else it’s their responsibility to bring in the clients, get you the jobs and pay you when not much is afoot. As a full time freelancer you’ll be inheriting all that and more. But the great thing about freelancing on the side is that you get to test the waters before you completely give up the security of your job. A little like wearing floaties on your first trip in the pool. If it doesn’t pan out and you turn out to be an awful swimmer well those little balloons of air will make sure you don’t get into too much trouble, and if you’re the next Ian Thorpe then you can quickly slip out of them and splash away. -
You Get to Take Holidays
I don’t know if all freelancers are like me, but I have a hard time taking holidays. There hardly ever seems to be a good time to do it, someone’s project is always due and if you don’t have any jobs on then you’re probably freaking out about your impending poverty. This is not the case for part-time freelancers, for they can always free up some time by turning away jobs with the luxury of knowing that they still have an employer who will actually pay them to relax… Did I mention that I miss paid holidays?
How hard do you work?
Back when I worked for the man, I often spent time commuting to and from work thinking about how much freer life would be as a freelancer. After freelancing for a few months and after having started getting a decent client list, I found that rather than working less than I used to, I was in fact working much, much, much more.
Although there were some easy weeks, for the three years I freelanced I averaged a 60 hour work week and peaked one horrible, stressful week at just under 90. Admittedly I am what most would call a work-aholic, but even so I suspect that most freelancers work more than they did when they worked as an employee.
And so I thought I’d open up the floor to FSw readers to see if my experience was an anomaly or if most freelancers work harder than they used to. Leave a comment and let me know how you find it, and be sure to vote in the poll!
PS. On a sidenote, have a look at the sexy new PollDaddy skin that I made for FSw today, its erm.. very green 
What kind of freelancer are you?
Hey guys, I’ve been wondering a lot lately about just what kind of freelancers we have reading FSw. I know there are plenty of professions represented, so I thought we’d have a quick poll!
On the right you will see I’ve listed some of the most common types of freelancers and I’ve left it open for you to add other types as well as to be a part of a few different jobs as I know lots of freelancers do a bit of everything.
So whatever kind of freelancer you are, it’s time to REPRESENT your profession!
Designers, How many concepts or samples do you provide?
This post has been translated into Spanish by Diana at Artegami.
When you work a design job you will at some point have to present a concept or a sample of the design to the client for their consideration. At various places that I have worked and as a freelancer I have presented anywhere from 1 to 5 concepts at a time. The reasoning behind the different numbers seems to go like this:
One concept:
We’re the experts, we know what is best. Don’t confuse the client.
Two-Three concepts:
The client needs choice. It is their project so they need some level of control.
Four-Five concepts:
The client should be getting value for their money.
In the end I settled on three concepts for most jobs but somehow always felt like I was making up extra rubbish to add in when the ‘real’ concept was the first one. So my question is how many concepts do you provide? And do you see any benefits or drawbacks to it? Answer in the poll and/or leave a comment…
Naming Your Freelancing Business – To Personalize or Not? (…with a Poll)
Freelancers are one-person businesses, and as such every freelancer will at some point need a name for their business. There is one question that always pops up, should you personalize your business name or not?
A Personalized Business Name
A Personalised Business Name is one that bears your own name in it. Examples would be things like “Nikolai Anz – Web Application Programmer” or “Ben Morris Design” and so on.
The advantages to a personalized name are that they are easy, often unique (though it depends on your name), descriptive, memorable and usually lend themselves to being Googled. Additionally they tend to lead to easily registrable domain names, something which is becoming more and more important as the domain landscape gets bleaker and domain squatters or just other businesses occupy almost every conceivable name.
