10 days of freelancing – creating a firm one day at a time, one client at a time
It has been a wild ride and I love every moment of it. I’ve connected with old clients, made new clients and seem to find myself networking even at 3:00 am during last call. My calendar has never been fuller and it seems as though I’ve got a client call scheduled daily. My fears of failure are dimming and my anticipation for success is increasing. But it has only been ten days; so where did I start, where am I going and how am I going to get there?
Well, most of us are designers and/or developers by trade – our first instinct is to build a “company” website – far from my first thought. I’ve always touted myself as a “business-oriented-designer” – my first instinct is to make sure this ambition of mine is possible. I need to play the numbers game and make sure everything adds up.
I started my first day on my own alone – not working with a client and not taking any client calls. I created three spreadsheets that I found essential:
- Revenue Expectations
- Operating Cost Expectations
- Project to Cost Breakdown
Essentially I needed to know how much revenue (money) I anticipating bringing in this year; the logic behind the numbers are based on my numbers from 2006 and my anticipation for demand in the year coming. In an effort to foresee profits and anticipating tax deductions; I also had to outline operating cost expectations (determine what I needed to run the business). Putting these numbers to use is how and why I created my project-to-cost breakdown. I basically determined the number of projects I needed and their respective costs in order to meet my revenue expectations.
In the midst of paper work, I applied for my EIN (federal tax id number) and complimented that with opening a small business checking account. I knew how much money I needed to make, how much I can anticipate spending, where I need it to come from and now a place to put it – however how the hell am I going to get it?
Towards the end of the first day, I made several calls to past clients – one of which was extremely excited to hear from me – a local and growing Ad Agency. I was pretty joyful myself, not even the end of my first day and I’ve got a consulting commitment for at least a couple weeks – possibly the entire month. One nice little confidence booster has been my past clients – almost everyone who I’ve informed of my new venture has been nothing but supportive and excited. One client even stating that this was “the best news he’s heard all year” — granted it is only 15 days into the New Year, I will take the compliment.
Because this is a fast paced industry and time is all of the essence – I haven’t been focusing a lot of my attention on what I sell myself; brand identity and interactive solutions. Many of you probably have noticed that CreativeRefresh.com still points to MarylandMedia.com. Fortunately MarylandMedia.com is a functioning portfolio site that I am proud of – it is also a heck of name (and memorable) for local consulting purposes. There are larger plans for CreativeRefresh.com or whatever becomes of it – anticipate a blog post before March 1st. I did of course place an order for new and improved business cards – I highly recommend 4by6.com.
So, where am I going? Right now I plan on keeping things realistic – building a name and client list, a project at a time. I also plan on partnering with colleagues either on a more permanent basis or just through freelancing in an effort to expand my breathe of knowledge, services and exposure. I’ve acquiring clients through a variety of outlets; the largest being past clients or straight referrals. I’ve been tackling the local Craig’s List market as well as utilizing postings from CSS Monster, Authentic Jobs and Read/Write Web.
Everyday I grow less worried and more excited – I call this a creative agency, but yes it is only a firm of one (more of an independent consultancy than anything else). My great joy is not when I make more money or land a large client. I will feel a sense of accomplishment and growth when business warrants hiring my first employee. When I’ve got more work than I can handle and it is sustainable enough to not have to keep outsourcing it to my fellow freelancers is when I really feel like this is a success.
- January 14th, 2007
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Best of luck. May you soon have to make that decision about whether to add employees. In our case, we have only two part-time Japanese associates as well as my wife and I, who are the principals and owners of The Word Works, Ltd.. We have long since made a deliberate decision to remain small and minimize fixed expenses.
We have friends who are more aggressive entrepreneurs. I will recall a conversation I had with one of them, who had built a company with 35 employees. I asked him what it was like to be the president of his company. This is what he said.
“When I started the business, it was just me. I worked my butt off to make sure that everything I did was perfect. That’s what built the reputation on which I built the business. Now that I’m president with 34 people working for me, 95% of my job is apologizing for other people’s mistakes. “
Ouch, I thought.
The joy of our current setup is that, since we are primarily translators and writers with a solid reputation, our clients could care less where we are physically located. While most of each year is still spent in Yokohama, in Japan, where we live, we are free to travel to places like Bangkok,Paris or Barcelona, or Corpus Christi, TX, to visit our new grandson. As long as where we are staying has a broadband connection The Word Works is in business. We could be richer in purely monetary terms. But the lifestyle? It’s pretty nice.
John, thanks for the comment and encouraging words! Best of luck to you as well (even though it sounds like things are going well already).