Please don’t think that one year into this new modus operandi (after 21 years as a wage slave), I actually know what I am talking about. Similarly, don’t assume this is all my own work – I had help. What applies to this article, also applies to the world of the Freelancer. Or Sole Trader. Or Gun for Hire. Or whatever you want to call it.
I thought I’d do a list (10 reasons why you should go freelance, 10 reasons why you should not) because I like lists. Heaven forbid I should come out with a firm recommendation. Then I asked some of my fellow freelance planning chums for their tips; for which many thanks.
Why you should go freelance:
1. You (can) have a life outside work. This can be kids and family, a horse or a dog but basically something you’d like to spend more time with, or doing. This has the added advantage of giving you something (productive) to do during the ‘quiet periods’. Otherwise “you’d feel like a loose end half the time”.
2. You can work remotely, be it from a cottage in the Cotswolds or a villa in Cannes – and nobody need know, unless you tell them. (Probably not a good idea to boast to folk in a Canary Wharf tower block that you are sitting in the garden sunning yourself if you want to get any more work from them).
3. You love autonomy. You want greater control of your life. You can pace yourself by choosing your workload; from the heady full on stretch of a pitch to the more leisurely nature of a qual project where you actually have time to ponder the findings and come up with a more creative, viable solution (rather than a quick fix).
4. You hate office politics or are crap at planning them. You resent all the time wasting that goes on; the e-mails clogging up your screen about make-up bags left in the ladies loo, the office hours, the bureaucracy, and the conventions.
5. You relish the chance to feed your head and stretch yourself a little – this can range from mastering book keeping to art direction to time management. Learning new skills (such as PowerPoint) are challenging but rewarding.
6. Huge variety and challenge – no project is ever the same. Nor are the people you come into contact with. If planners are naturally curious about people, you’ll be working with all sorts of different (and interesting) folk.
7. You like being solely responsible for your own end product.
8. You hate routines; you adore flexibility, agility and spontaneity.
9. You have a whole year to pay the taxman. (Sadly this doesn’t apply to the VAT man who comes after you every three months). I STRONGLY recommend a hiring a bookkeeper, an accountant and an IT help desk.
10. You can get to pay in some embarrassingly large cheques if it works.
Why you should not go freelance:
1. When you haven’t got enough experience to do it on your own. “The people I’ve seen flounder are often doing it too early”.
2. When you haven’t got any sort of reputation in the industry (e.g. never won any APG/ IPA) awards, never had your photo on Page 3 of Campaign, never even written an article for Sharp Stick).
3. When you don’t like networking. Let’s face it, part of the alternative contrariness of the planner’s make up can mean some of them are socially challenged.
4. When you are utterly codependent on your PA to get you to meetings on time, have the right documentation with you, do your expenses, to remind you to return phone calls. Not only will you never manage your diary, you’ll never get paid.
5. When you haven’t got good contacts in the industry, your spare room home office conversion may seem a little lonely. It can be quite hard to keep tabs on the industry without making a special effort – paying £220 a year for Campaign won’t do it for you.
6. When you haven’t got enough confidence in yourself. You get paranoid when the phone doesn’t ring for two days. You don’t like ringing people up cold to pitch your wares. When times are tough (as they are now) money worries can be a big issue. How much is left to pay on that mortgage? The regular monthly pay cheque represents big peace of mind.
7. When you don’t like being nomadic; freelancing can mean living abroad for a month at a time, schlepping all over the country doing groups, days on the tube criss-crossing all over London, with your lap top on your back. Tra la la.
8. When you miss the culture of belonging within a company. You’ll miss having some to complain to who understands who/ what you are on about. Your friends will have little sympathy because thy are secretly jealous.
9. When work becomes all embracing because you are either so paranoid about where the next job is coming from you take on everything at once, or because you are working from home so you never really switch off – it can take over your thoughts every minute of every day (including weekends).
10. When you enjoy status. This can be a job title, the corner office, the devoted PA, the lunches in Soho, the free newspapers and magazines, the adoration of your department.
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