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.

Obviously when you put “all of your eggs in one basket,” so to say, it’s not the ideal situation for most freelancers. Freelancers like to pick and choose, and the thing I love about being a solopreneur is being able to wrap up a project and kiss it goodbye when I’m not enjoying it. Most situations are temporary, and I have a say in who I work for. Of course there are initiatives that I enjoy but there’s no doubt that a huge advantage to freelancing is being able to finish a project and never have to look back on the work or the client.

In this case, I think there are two kinds of freelancers: Those that take on short-term gigs and focus solely on those. That can be lucrative, and often involves relying on a recruiter or agencies to find ongoing jobs. In my case, I am a full-time freelancer that takes on a mix of one-time jobs. I also have several clients that need ongoing work, and also hold down a very flexible part-time job. This blend of arrangements enables me to consistently pay the bills and live comfortably. So if you work strictly for agencies, taking on a long-term job for one client isn’t exactly dangerous–it can be great. But if you’re making a living off of several clients and having to constantly secure customers, and you take on one long-term job for a single client, it can hurt your business.

There are many issues that came up for me as I’ve been powering through the last several weeks. And I always try to learn from my experiences–and share those experiences with you–so here goes:

No Time for Marketing

It’s been hard to make time to outreach, and not only does that have the potential to hurt my business, but it wears on me emotionally. When you can’t plant seeds and you are the kind of freelancer who likes unveiling new opportunities, it hampers the feeling that you are spreading your wings and flying.

Instead, I’ve worried that I’m not lining up new jobs and ruining my business–but really, I know myself well enough to know that’s just an old fear I had from the beginning of my career as a contractor. In this case, it’s okay for me to take a break from marketing, because I haven’t stopped all efforts. I’m cutting down for now and I’m stable enough to step back from my normal marketing agenda. But I know it is temporary. Beginning freelancers may not be able to do this and ceasing on marketing could be devastating. Assess your own situation first before you take on a one-client gig that will go for a few weeks.

Perpetual Fretting

In addition to fearing that I’m not securing new work, paranoia can increase in other ways. Having hit a few snags communicating with the client, I couldn’t just throw in the towel. (First, I’m not a quitter. Second, the project is for awe-inspiring pay and working for a well-known company–a huge plus for any copywriter.)

The client and myself worked through some initial issues, especially in the communication arena, and while I would normally do that with any client because I like to see things through, I worried that the tension could hurt our relationship in the long run. The client is an agency that gives me regular work, so anytime I have to stand up to them or we have to go back and forth on project terms, I worry about losing future gigs. But this was a huge client of theirs they entrusted me with, so I wanted to make sure not to disappoint while standing my ground. Still, when there was some tension I felt very trapped. So I took many deep breaths, resolved the issues, and am now coasting through to the finish line. I trust in the end this client will use me again because they have in the past–despite issues. They know I’m a hard worker and there is back-and-forth with any employee.

Usually after I have some tension with a client, the project wraps up, we settle back into separate corners and meet up again refreshed and ready to work. The beginning of the project included a few bumps in the road regarding setting deadlines and settling on fees, and while they are settled up now, it was nerve wracking at first. But you can’t expect things to go perfectly, and you can’t blow tension out of proportion–negotiation is part of the project process.

Deadlines Galore

For this particular project, it was broken into several different deadlines. So an advantage to giving all my attention to this client has been that I only have to focus on their deadlines. There’s a plus. It’s nice to be able to focus on one thing instead of multi-tasking all the time. If you work for an agency on short-term projects, this is a huge advantage. For freelancers that rely on multiple clients, it’s nice to focus on deadlines from one client, but it’s not as feasible.

Maintaining Other Relationships

Even when you work on one project at a time with one client, you still have to communicate with existing clients and make time to respond to potential customer inquiries. While I haven’t had time to get out and establish new clients, my business thrives on several ongoing partnerships, including that part-time job I mentioned. I couldn’t just turn that off, though I could minimize other incoming work. Still, I’ve had to multi-task to take on other jobs without taking on too much. I ducked in to let the part-time job know that I needed less work for the next few weeks but let them know how much I could handle.

I firmly believe in having several ongoing jobs for any freelance business–waiting on individual projects to come in is too financially risky, especially if you have a lot of fiscal pressures. So even though it would be nice to focus on my big project, I had to make time to at least let others clients know that I could get back to them in a few weeks, or that I had time to take on a quick job. Maintaining communication and being honest is key when you have other clients. You can’t just turn off when you have a huge, ongoing task at hand. You want to be available but you don’t want to take on too much work and slam yourself at the same time. It’s a balancing act like everything in the contractor world.

I guess the point in all of this is that it’s easy to see the dollar signs when you are presented with a huge project. But you have to consider if it’s right for you and your business, especially where you are now as a contractor. For me, this was a huge undertaking. But now that I know how to manage a persistent project–and all is well with the client–I would do it again in a heartbeat. But first, I need a week to breathe. Maybe four.