I don’t want to talk about Freelancing and Consulting without talking about the gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting. Its not all rose colored glasses and sailing off into the sunset. Working for yourself takes a lot of hard work and dedication that some people may ignore. So if you’re reading tons of blog posts of the happy and fun and great sides of working for yourself, you may be overlooking the downside all together….
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Your Income is Variable
Generally speaking, the effort that you put into your business is the income that you will see. Your income is totally dependent on a lot of different aspects of your business and the major piece is YOU. You are the driving force behind the $$ that you bring in. If you don’t work, you don’t paid.
This is detached from the 9-5 day job where you get paid on a 2 week cycle, especially if you’re salaried. You already know what your income is going to be every 2 weeks. With a consulting or freelancing job, you have to go after that $, that income, that client, that project.
Your income is actually variable. Some months you make little to no money while the next month you make three times your normal amount. But over the course of the year, your income is looking pretty good on paper.
You can mitigate the variable income by changing the strategy on how you get paid, such as being on retainer. You can have a SaS product or a productized service that you can sell regularly. Maybe even advertising revenue from your website that you’ve already built..
You Have to Make the Decisions
Another gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting is that you’re the one in charge and you have to live with the consequences. You cant sit around and just let someone else take the wheel…and the blame… You may be stuck in that impostor syndrome cycle where you feel that you can never get anything accomplished. You actually have decision that could effect you negatively or positively. Heading down the route of market research can definitely help you make that decision if you want to go down this route long term.
You Are On Your Own
You are a one-man-band, for the most part. When you’re starting out, you’re by yourself. You need to be accountable for your own self, your action, and your decisions. When a decision is made, you don’t have anyone behind you telling you its good or bad. This can be GREAT if you need to just get things done….or it can backfire if you’re the type that needs validation.
Build a community around you can help mitigate some of the “Im alone” situations and help you move through ideas, decisions, or points in your product.
It can get lonely working by yourself and can drive you crazy! Break up your routine every once in a while and go out to eat lunch with a friend. Visit a relative you haven’t seen in a while. Go hang out at a co-working space. Get out of the house and socialize so you don’t start to become that ‘weird freelance guy…(or gal)…’.
Tough Skin
A common gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting is the need to have tough skin. Sometimes things don’t go your way and you need to not take things personally. People will let you down, clients will lie, vendors will fall through, and life will become real. This will not always be the case every time, but you need to know how to handle situations as they arise and keep moving.
You’ll get to a point where people keep telling you “no” and you’re going to face adversity. Don’t forget there is always something better on the other side.
Getting through 50 ‘no’ to that one makes all the difference!
Self Starter
There is no-one really behind you. Becoming a self starter requires you to have that effort behind you to get going to get started. You don’t have anyone watching over your shoulder to make sure you’re doing what you’re suppose to be doing (and honestly that feels GREAT most of the time). But this can also give you that false sense of being lost and don’t know where or when to begin.
Don’t forget, you ARE the expert here. You ARE the one who is kicking butt and taking names.
Start small and snowball into being better at becoming a self starter! No-one will be there to tell you to start; you have to actually start.
Easy to Overwork/Burnout
Another gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting is that is pretty easy to get overworked and burn yourself out. Burning the candle on both ends maybe something that you’re use to doing on a 9 to 5…but when you’re on your own, that’s the quickest way to burn out. Just because you CAN stay up until 3 am every night working on your product or project doesn’t mean that it won’t catch up with you shortly. Set boundaries with yourself and your work to make sure you don’t go down the path of burnout and being overworked.
You quality of work will suffer and will show. Set limitations, goals, and boundaries with your clients and with yourself. ‘Mind Your Own Business‘ and work on yourself. Set policies and procedures on yourself and your business where you do slow down and stop overworking.
Know your limits because you can easily push over. You are NOT going to catch up on sleep this weekend….
Time Management
Because you are by yourself, you definitely need to work on your time management skills. You need to have some sort of system to manage your time. There are only 2,000 work hours a year. Which boils down to 40 hours a week. In reality, you’re only going to be getting about 20 hours a week on billable hours. The rest of the week, you need to do all the administrative work that comes to running a business.
This can include answering emails, checking the mail, filling out your taxes, doctors appointments, etc. Set yourself on a schedule where you can time-box “work work” and stick to it! You can gain a better understanding on how long it takes you to do things which will then translate into billing clients.
The quality of your work will actually show if you’re not rushing to cram a day in.
What Vacation?
When you’re working a 9 to 5, your vacation times and days allowed are almost a given. You’re awarded roughly 2 weeks of time off that you can completely disconnect from work and do what you want to do: relax! When you’re working for yourself, your time away from your baby can lose you money. You’re not 100% autonomous (yet) and still need to have a few ‘check ups’ to make sure everything is ok. This could be checking emails really quick and only replying to important ones or making sure that launch went smoothly.
The gotchas of Freelancing and Consulting are that vacations are a luxury where you can have 100% relaxation. We have to plan for this a lot further and harder than a traditional 9 to 5.