Far from being content with the material comforts of being permanently employed, the freelancer has a restless soul. This restlessness translates into his character; he is efficient, cost-effective and often much faster than the agency’s creative.
The creative industry is a far larger world for him than to sit and frivolously labour on one project for an extended period of time. While yawning his way through a corporate brochure, a 30-second TV spot might whiz past him and drop to the ground - obviously breaking into pieces and seeing its “ma se…” in the process.
For the freelancer, the world is not a safe place. There are far too many campaigns in distress. His reaction needs to be quick. Like any other superhero, he has to be fast, fit and agile enough to always be one step ahead of danger.
Similarly, like any other superhero, he has his weakness. The proverbial kryptonite if you like. And when it comes to the freelancer, it comes in no deadlier form than the freelancer’s flu, more commonly known as SARS (South African Revenue Services).
One whiff of this deadly strand can relegate him back into that archaic state of being a permanently employed creative.
Granted, freelancing has its merits; it allows you to have full control of your life. You choose who you want to work for and at what price.
But unlike most people imagined, freelancing is not a life filled with sunshine, daisies and beautiful maidens frolicking in the nude for world peace.
Freelancers operate as “sole proprietors”. What this means is, just like any other business, they have to account for their every business activities - deadlines, client briefings, reviews etc.
When it comes to a freelancer, time is literally money. It’s important for a freelancer to understand how much an hour of their time is worth. And by this, I don’t mean how much they charge by the hour. I mean they need to understand how much an hour of their time is worth to reach their monthly income target.
This simply means they have to take their monthly income target, divide it by the amount of hours they’re prepared to work for the month, which equals to their hourly rate or the amount of money they need to make by the hour to maintain their lifestyle.
Equation: X (target personal income) ÷ Y (amount of hours prepared to work per month) = Z (Hourly rate)
The art to successful freelancing involves being able to determine how much of your time is productive time. When you spend time in reviews, client briefings, negotiating contracts, generating invoices, cost estimates and processing purchase orders, this is not productive time unless you’ve billed for it. Productive time is the amount of time dedicated to nothing but profit generation.
You will either have to bill for this time or outsource it to somebody else, while you concentrate on tasks that directly increase your profits.
As a freelancer, you are your own business. Meinc, if you so prefer. And whether you run this company to the ground or keep growing it depends solely on your ability to scrutinise and monitor your books - over and above creatively solving your client’s problems.
Until you have developed the skill and dedication to keep a rigorous and detailed paper trail, much as we all desire to do it, for most it’ll be a long walk to freelance.
