Business
my question to myself was do I do this forever,
or do I start hiring? Do I only work with clients
in a specific industry? Do I try and charge more
and work less? Do I charge more and work
more?! What would you do in that situation?
Each step brings different opportunities and
challenges. Play your decision forward three,
six and twelve months. What happens next and
does it excite you? Do you want to start hiring
people, or do you want to create yourself a
job? Or do you only want to work three days a
week? How feasible does your dream timeline
look and what do you need to get there?
How hard will it be?
The Instagram posts and the “become a
freelancer” courses never tell you about
the hard work required to win and manage
clients. Nor do they explain how much work
you’ll be doing on a daily basis. They give you
a speculative sum of money to dream about
whilst showing you the sports car they’ve
bought with their winnings.
Ronnie Coleman explained it well: “Everybody
wanna be a bodybuilder, but don’t nobody
wanna lift no heavy-ass weight.”
If you switch to being freelance or self-
employed, you must be willing to do those
tasks and keep doing them until they
get you somewhere. You must have an
uncompromising belief in yourself the whole
time, because it won’t always be obvious when
you’re getting somewhere.
The course of true success never runs
smooth; don’t expect it to. If other people
have been able to do it, you can too, just don’t
underestimate the time and effort it took and
don’t let their Instagram fool you that it was all
straightforward.
What happens if it goes wrong?
It’s easy to think of it succeeding. It’s harder,
but necessary, to think about the difficulties.
it’s far easier to prepare now than when you’re
24
under pressure to pay bills and sign clients.
Imagine you replace 100% of your salary
within six months. Great. Imagine you replace
75% or 50%, what happens then? Do you have
reserves set aside to live on? Can you afford
to make nothing for six months? Can you
stay motivated to keep banging on doors of
people who aren’t ready to buy your services
yet? What happens when that client you were
looking forward to (and banking on) working
with changes their strategy? to submit before you secure one piece of
work? It might be more than you expect.
If you’re employed, your employer takes all the
risks. They’re taking a calculated gamble on
you and on their own ability. Do you have the
same confidence in yourself? What would you
gamble on your own ability to smash it where
many others haven’t managed to? How will you take holidays? Will you always be
‘on’ for clients, or will you build holidays into
your contracts? Or will you only accept project-
based work so you can take regular breaks?
Where will my clients come
from?
If you’re embarking on work different to your
current role, can you have clients lined up for
when you leave? Ask potential clients about
working with you before you quit. Don’t
go ahead without doing your research. If
you’re leaving your current role to become a
competitor, tread carefully. There may be legal
implications as well as moral and reputational
ones. It’s a small world and burning bridges is
not advisable, you never know what you might
need in the future, plus no one likes a snake.
Someone in my team gave freelancing a go
a few years ago. We put a lot of work his way
because he was reliable and trustworthy, and
he left on good terms. However, it turned out
he wasn’t keen on taking on this risk himself
and being under constant pressure to find
work. His passion was doing the work, not
looking for it, because he’d impressed us so
much, we re-hired him.
Where will your first customers come from
and the leads after that? Have a plan and make
sure it’s based on what will happen. Have you
seen actual, real work you could take on as a
freelancer? How many proposals will you need
What haven’t I considered?
If you go freelance you will need to replace
your computer, every piece of software you
use and the professional indemnity insurance
your employer has for you. If you work in a nice
office with a team of people you enjoy engaging
with, how will you replace this experience and
work environment?
One benefit of freelance work is you choose
where you do it from. A good friend, Aimee,
had started out as a life and business coach
in London when she realised most of her
coaching was being done via Skype. She won
her clients through referral and her website,
she rarely met with people in person; Aimee
decided to relocate to Spain, halve her living
costs, reduce the pressure and allow her to
focus on serving her clients well rather than
feeling she had to sign new ones. Doing better
work for her clients meant the referrals came
in faster and her business grew as a result.
Have you considered changing more than
just your job? If relocating is the real problem
you’re trying to solve, it might be possible in
your current role. Make sure you have correctly
identified your problem before you create a
plan to solve it.
Evaluate the pros and cons
I used to rent a house and dreamt of buying
one. I thought about all the good things it
would bring, being able to redecorate how I
wanted and not feeling I was wasting money
on rent. What I took for granted were the
benefits of renting. If the boiler breaks it’s
someone else’s problem. Moving requires one
month’s notice, not a lengthy selling process. A
fall in sale prices won’t affect me. When I was
trapped in a ‘grass is always greener’ mindset
I forgot what I was already taking for granted.
With every option there are trade-offs, pros
and cons. Whatever you choose to do, I wish
you all the best. Quitting your job and going
freelance might be exactly the right thing for
you, it might not be. Don’t go in blind, go in
prepared. Good luck!
Each step brings different
opportunities and
challenges
Jodie Cook is the owner of JC Social Media, Birmingham. She co-founded
Clever Tykes, a series of children’s storybooks inspiring enterprising behaviour,
read in every UK primary school. She won Birmingham Young Professional
in 2014; was included in Forbes’ 30 under 30 Social Entrepreneurs in
Europe 2017 and won the 2017 Entrepreneurs Champion award at the GB
Entrepreneur Awards. She also competes for GB in powerlifting.
www.jodiecook.com
25