Freelancing Is Hard Work!
You have to find someone who will value your skills and offer you what you're worth (or take a pay cut for "experience").
Then you have to actually do the work (the easiest part).
But then, after the work is done, you STILL have to track the client down and bill them for the time you've worked on their project.
For anyone who's been down this road, you know that last step is the hardest and most painful of all.
Most people aren't willing to pay a freelancer what they deserve.
So, it's an uphill battle.
A battle I've fought for many years.
Then I stumbled on a solution - completely by accident!
If you've freelanced for long enough as your full-time gig, at some point you'll hit a wall.
It seems like no matter how qualified or affordable you are, you can't get a client to commit - but your bills keep piling up anyways.
So, we begrudgingly turn back to the 9-5 we so hastily forsook at our first opportunity and hope to make a sustainable income for a while.
There are a few problems with this*
Once you've tasted the freedom of running your own business and being your own boss, anything less is completely unsatisfactory.
It's torturous to go back to the daily grind of traditional time-for-money-exchange jobs. It's downright criminal!
Another problem you'll find is that eventually you will be able to get a freelance client or two and if you're tied down to another job, that means you have more work to do when you get home.
Freelance Clients Can Be Awfully Needy
Not all...but there are definitely those clients who like to micromanage their freelancers. I suspect this is likely due to the bad rap a lot of us get on account of the few people who said they could do something they really couldn't do and we all got burned for their incompetence.
Either way, these clients feel the need to check up on you at all hours and pester you regardless of how frequent you update them on your progress or demonstrate your capability. If you're at another job when your clients need you, it creates this monstrous juggling act which absolutely cannot be sustainable for long periods of time.
The burnout of freelancers is very real. I've been there multiple times.
In fact, my most recent attempt to return to the 9-5 failed miserably...in the best possible way.
I was desperate and in debt (still in debt) due to some failed business ventures.
My family and I would really like to pursue my music career and we're even considering international adoption - but our financial woes are holding us back.
So, I went back to job searching.
My resume is such that I rarely have trouble finding a job - I'm just picky because I value my time so highly - it feels like a sell out to take a job that pays below what I'm used to making as a freelancer.
But, in the process I saw a position for someone with my skillset as an Amazon consultant) I was already freelancing with this skill set so I thought the transition could be nice if the pay was right.
The company contacted me immediately and wanted to discuss the position with me.
They weren't "hiring" and Amazon Consultant per se. They were a agency composed of freelancers and independent contractors. Their role was to find and bill clients and assign them to the right freelancers for the job.
I signed on and received 8 clients within the first 30 days (2 on my very first day) because Amazon consulting is a big part of what they do.
But, they also have openings for wordpress developers, virtual assistants, telemarketers, blog writers, SEO, all sorts of freelance positions.
The beautiful part is I tell them my rate and the hours I want to work that week and they send me enough clients to fill those hours. Then I simply bill the system and the company bills the clients and pays me directly.
No work or hassle in finding and billing clients!
It's literally everything great about being a freelancer...with none of the bad parts.
If you're looking to expand your freelance horizons - contact HR@freeeup.com and tell them Caleb sent you and they'll let you know what positions they have available.
Ecommerce experts, US based virtual assistants, and writers are a big need right now for us.
And that's the story of how I accidentally stumbled upon the ancient secret of freelancing without the hard parts. Pass it on!
