Warning'i for freelancer
A short list of "rakes" and not quite obvious truths that I had to face in almost 12 years of remote work as a technical and scientific journalist.
Tips for freelancers * usually focus on the problem of prokastination and organization of accounting tasks. I do not argue that self-organization in general and, moreover, self-organization outside office space is an important topic, but not the only one that should be taken into account when deciding to go for “free-standing bread”.
* Hereinafter I use the definition of “freelancer”, although I don’t really like to associate myself with this concept. The freelancer is perceived by the market as a one-time performer, temporary worker. And my article is about permanent remote work.
You can not build a successful career, hoping to replace a boring office on the alleged "beach" work with a laptop over the Internet (remember the classic stamp). Before you earn a name and sometimes allow yourself to work not the whole day, but several hours a day on really interesting tasks, you have to plow for 12 or more hours for quite a long time, sometimes regretting wasted time. Therefore, motivation should not be built on the idea of ​​"how not to work." Work, oddly enough, must love and desire. This and in the office is very helpful, and in remote mode - just necessary.
')
But it is not at all necessary to force oneself to strive for the impossible, by inventing exotic motivational slogans. You can find inspiration in the banal. In my case, it worked (and continues to work) the understanding that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the office for any price. Perhaps the reason for this decision was my first “office” job - the operator of the then dying paging connection. To be honest, they paid pennies there, so that women of retirement age and young mothers with no education prevailed in the team. From the absence of normal interlocutors, I read a book about LaTeX (the system for designing scientific publications ... then this knowledge was very relevant) from cover to cover, but in the end I just quit. Later, I worked in more successful teams, but the course for remote was already set.
My experience in the market of "free artists" indicates that you can earn a little tangible money only with a narrow specialization. The wider the market segment where you work, the more there are players and, accordingly, lower prices. To name your prices, it is necessary to formulate some kind of market demand, but a unique service that competitors will not pull. This will reduce the potential volume of the market, but if properly positioned, it will practically remove competition.
The problem is that before you start earning, this very line of activity must be consciously chosen. For example, decide that you should continue to work as an exclusively “technical writer” for TK to mobile applications. And, despite the deep knowledge of the market, such a “conscious choice” will almost always be a “poking a finger at the sky”, because it is impossible to take everything into account. In fact, this is a lottery where the stakes are the success or failure of a career. The same problem, by the way, with manufacturers of gadgets, and even small / medium-sized businesses. If you want to demand - think up a unique "chip" and be prepared for the fact that it can "not shoot." The further the “trick” takes the product away from the already developed market, the more possible profits (and at the same time the risks of losses).
My current specialization - a technical journalist in the field of telecommunications and IT business - is a result of hundreds of small steps that circumstances most often pushed, rather than a personal “career plan”. Then the current customer will ask to master the “adjacent” field of activity, then they will randomly offer a project close by the nature of the activity (and, most importantly, interesting to me personally). Consciously, especially 12 or even 10 years ago, I would hardly have come to such self-positioning myself. It happened so ...
Freelance exchanges, providing a stream of orders - this is good. But the minimum level of financial stability can be achieved only by obtaining clients "for service" (which requires a certain amount of work per month). It is better for customers to be direct, this will protect against the unpredictable development policy of order exchanges (and at the same time from their glitches).
A compilation of good customers is developed over the years, and with an unfortunate combination of economic circumstances, it is lost in a couple of months. So in a sense, this is also a risk, as was the choice of specialization discussed above. To reduce the risk of being left at the bottom of the trough, it is worthwhile to search for clients continuously, i.e. negotiations with new customers and constant attempts to “sell yourself” are not a one-time process, but an integral part of the work of a freelancer.
"Active sales" take time, which sometimes you really want to spend on something paid. But this is one of the ways to invest in the future, by the way, as well as self-education.
As you know, all eggs can not be kept in one basket. This means that it is better to have several different customers who pay for services in different currencies and according to different principles on different accounts. It is even better when they have different payment delays (the time that passes from the time of the job to the actual receipt of money on the account).
The principle works well in filling the available time with orders. It is better to have heterogeneous orders that require slightly different skills and allow certain liberties in the course of execution (something can be done on the road, but something is not allowed; one job allows for background noise, the other is not, etc .; In one case, you need a permanent connection to the Internet, in the other - not).
All this is difficult to build and take into account, but in difficult times you will thank yourself for such prudence.
Virtually any specialist is faced with requests from friends and acquaintances to "quickly see something." System administrators treat relatives' computers for viruses, designers draw greeting cards, etc. The traditional opinion of a freelancer - “you must initially put yourself so that free work does not fall,” i.e. work exclusively for money. But not everything that is done for free does not bring in the end any income. Sometimes good clients come in this way.
True, puzzling, evaluating possible prospects, is also useless. As with the choice of specialization, there are too many factors that are impossible to take into account. The path that I chose was to rigidly fix the share of “free” work in the total volume (in hours), and choose only what arouses personal interest.
Freelancers do not like for the fact that they often delay projects or disappear altogether for supposedly good reasons. And, frankly, for good reason. I had the opportunity to act as a customer, who was told why the work was not done. Unpleasant, I must say, feeling. The main thing is that in this situation, the stated reason has no meaning: the work is either done or not. There is no third.
Practice shows that really strong relationships with customers can be built only if you try to envisage almost everything, having: time, reservation of work, Internet channel and equipment, and at the same time plan “B” for any unforeseen event. Yes, everyone has different circumstances. But their customers forgive them only if the failure was preceded by long-term cooperation without such errors. In terms of SLA, it is necessary to ensure a high level of availability of its services.
For skilled professionals in the market is quite high demand. And the freelancer, getting out of poverty in people, first of all seeks to take all the orders that fell on him. And absolutely nothing. A tired brain loses “dexterity”, solves problems more slowly, does not produce really good solutions.
The brain must be regularly "air". How exactly is an open question. In my case, a radical change in activity works best.
Frankly speaking, I “peeped” this advice in one of the video lectures (either by UI / UX, or by design), which the spouse watches at dinner. The phrase he heard briefly perfectly summed up the old reflections on this topic. Indeed, the negative feedback from the customer about the work done is in no way connected with your personal qualities in general and with professional suitability in particular.
The perception of the result of the work is influenced not only by the personal qualities of the performer, but also by the completeness of the issued TK, the personal views of the customer and his colleagues, even the peculiarities of relationships within the team. Those. negative should not be taken to heart, but it must be analyzed. Anyway, the artist’s fault is usually present, but more often it’s not at all where offended freelancers are looking for it. The work was not done badly, but the specialization was unsuccessfully chosen, the features of customer relations were not taken into account, the necessary questions were not asked at the preliminary meeting, the solution used was not explained.
The only thing that cannot be taken away from a freelancer is his reputation. But the concept of reputation is often confused with the portfolio - a garbage dump of previously created "masterpieces". Here it is necessary to draw a clear line.
The problem with the portfolio is that it does not carry any information about the suitability of its holder to the execution of a new order. Works in the portfolio are of two types: previous orders and some abstract "masterpieces" invented by the performer from scratch to show "I can do that." In the first case, the work is created according to the TOR using some source materials from the customer, which often determines styles, theses of articles, design, etc. (the degree of customer influence on the result is not known to the new employer). In the second - the work is performed without taking into account market factors and the audience. Both that, and that makes result absolutely useless to the new customer (though not all potential employers understand it). Portfolio helps to show technical skills: typing, the ability to use the basic functions of Photoshop, etc.
Reputation is about something else. This is about the professional qualities of a specialist, allowing you to use word of mouth to search for new customers.
Despite this attitude to the portfolio, I keep a collection of links to their work. This is required by the market. And I still can not afford to ignore these requirements.
The economic situation and the needs of the market are changing very quickly, so there is no point in spending a lot of energy on working out a career development concept or closing some doors for yourself forever. Today you are a successful specialist with a queue of orders, and tomorrow there will be a new crisis, and you will have to drop price expectations and go to work at McDonalds. But there is nothing irreparable.
Tips for freelancers * usually focus on the problem of prokastination and organization of accounting tasks. I do not argue that self-organization in general and, moreover, self-organization outside office space is an important topic, but not the only one that should be taken into account when deciding to go for “free-standing bread”.
* Hereinafter I use the definition of “freelancer”, although I don’t really like to associate myself with this concept. The freelancer is perceived by the market as a one-time performer, temporary worker. And my article is about permanent remote work.
Need the right motivation
You can not build a successful career, hoping to replace a boring office on the alleged "beach" work with a laptop over the Internet (remember the classic stamp). Before you earn a name and sometimes allow yourself to work not the whole day, but several hours a day on really interesting tasks, you have to plow for 12 or more hours for quite a long time, sometimes regretting wasted time. Therefore, motivation should not be built on the idea of ​​"how not to work." Work, oddly enough, must love and desire. This and in the office is very helpful, and in remote mode - just necessary.
')
But it is not at all necessary to force oneself to strive for the impossible, by inventing exotic motivational slogans. You can find inspiration in the banal. In my case, it worked (and continues to work) the understanding that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the office for any price. Perhaps the reason for this decision was my first “office” job - the operator of the then dying paging connection. To be honest, they paid pennies there, so that women of retirement age and young mothers with no education prevailed in the team. From the absence of normal interlocutors, I read a book about LaTeX (the system for designing scientific publications ... then this knowledge was very relevant) from cover to cover, but in the end I just quit. Later, I worked in more successful teams, but the course for remote was already set.
Specialization is both good and evil, but it is necessary
My experience in the market of "free artists" indicates that you can earn a little tangible money only with a narrow specialization. The wider the market segment where you work, the more there are players and, accordingly, lower prices. To name your prices, it is necessary to formulate some kind of market demand, but a unique service that competitors will not pull. This will reduce the potential volume of the market, but if properly positioned, it will practically remove competition.
The problem is that before you start earning, this very line of activity must be consciously chosen. For example, decide that you should continue to work as an exclusively “technical writer” for TK to mobile applications. And, despite the deep knowledge of the market, such a “conscious choice” will almost always be a “poking a finger at the sky”, because it is impossible to take everything into account. In fact, this is a lottery where the stakes are the success or failure of a career. The same problem, by the way, with manufacturers of gadgets, and even small / medium-sized businesses. If you want to demand - think up a unique "chip" and be prepared for the fact that it can "not shoot." The further the “trick” takes the product away from the already developed market, the more possible profits (and at the same time the risks of losses).
My current specialization - a technical journalist in the field of telecommunications and IT business - is a result of hundreds of small steps that circumstances most often pushed, rather than a personal “career plan”. Then the current customer will ask to master the “adjacent” field of activity, then they will randomly offer a project close by the nature of the activity (and, most importantly, interesting to me personally). Consciously, especially 12 or even 10 years ago, I would hardly have come to such self-positioning myself. It happened so ...
Stable income is given only by regular direct customers, but no one has canceled active sales.
Freelance exchanges, providing a stream of orders - this is good. But the minimum level of financial stability can be achieved only by obtaining clients "for service" (which requires a certain amount of work per month). It is better for customers to be direct, this will protect against the unpredictable development policy of order exchanges (and at the same time from their glitches).
A compilation of good customers is developed over the years, and with an unfortunate combination of economic circumstances, it is lost in a couple of months. So in a sense, this is also a risk, as was the choice of specialization discussed above. To reduce the risk of being left at the bottom of the trough, it is worthwhile to search for clients continuously, i.e. negotiations with new customers and constant attempts to “sell yourself” are not a one-time process, but an integral part of the work of a freelancer.
"Active sales" take time, which sometimes you really want to spend on something paid. But this is one of the ways to invest in the future, by the way, as well as self-education.
"Eggs in different baskets" - a multi-faceted concept for the organization of all work
As you know, all eggs can not be kept in one basket. This means that it is better to have several different customers who pay for services in different currencies and according to different principles on different accounts. It is even better when they have different payment delays (the time that passes from the time of the job to the actual receipt of money on the account).
The principle works well in filling the available time with orders. It is better to have heterogeneous orders that require slightly different skills and allow certain liberties in the course of execution (something can be done on the road, but something is not allowed; one job allows for background noise, the other is not, etc .; In one case, you need a permanent connection to the Internet, in the other - not).
All this is difficult to build and take into account, but in difficult times you will thank yourself for such prudence.
"Free" also brings income, but rarely
Virtually any specialist is faced with requests from friends and acquaintances to "quickly see something." System administrators treat relatives' computers for viruses, designers draw greeting cards, etc. The traditional opinion of a freelancer - “you must initially put yourself so that free work does not fall,” i.e. work exclusively for money. But not everything that is done for free does not bring in the end any income. Sometimes good clients come in this way.
True, puzzling, evaluating possible prospects, is also useless. As with the choice of specialization, there are too many factors that are impossible to take into account. The path that I chose was to rigidly fix the share of “free” work in the total volume (in hours), and choose only what arouses personal interest.
There are fewer good reasons for breaking agreements than it seems.
Freelancers do not like for the fact that they often delay projects or disappear altogether for supposedly good reasons. And, frankly, for good reason. I had the opportunity to act as a customer, who was told why the work was not done. Unpleasant, I must say, feeling. The main thing is that in this situation, the stated reason has no meaning: the work is either done or not. There is no third.
Practice shows that really strong relationships with customers can be built only if you try to envisage almost everything, having: time, reservation of work, Internet channel and equipment, and at the same time plan “B” for any unforeseen event. Yes, everyone has different circumstances. But their customers forgive them only if the failure was preceded by long-term cooperation without such errors. In terms of SLA, it is necessary to ensure a high level of availability of its services.
Rest the brain needs no less than car maintenance
For skilled professionals in the market is quite high demand. And the freelancer, getting out of poverty in people, first of all seeks to take all the orders that fell on him. And absolutely nothing. A tired brain loses “dexterity”, solves problems more slowly, does not produce really good solutions.
The brain must be regularly "air". How exactly is an open question. In my case, a radical change in activity works best.
Negative feedback is not the end of the world, but a reason to think
Frankly speaking, I “peeped” this advice in one of the video lectures (either by UI / UX, or by design), which the spouse watches at dinner. The phrase he heard briefly perfectly summed up the old reflections on this topic. Indeed, the negative feedback from the customer about the work done is in no way connected with your personal qualities in general and with professional suitability in particular.
The perception of the result of the work is influenced not only by the personal qualities of the performer, but also by the completeness of the issued TK, the personal views of the customer and his colleagues, even the peculiarities of relationships within the team. Those. negative should not be taken to heart, but it must be analyzed. Anyway, the artist’s fault is usually present, but more often it’s not at all where offended freelancers are looking for it. The work was not done badly, but the specialization was unsuccessfully chosen, the features of customer relations were not taken into account, the necessary questions were not asked at the preliminary meeting, the solution used was not explained.
The name must be protected from youth. Name, but not portfolio
The only thing that cannot be taken away from a freelancer is his reputation. But the concept of reputation is often confused with the portfolio - a garbage dump of previously created "masterpieces". Here it is necessary to draw a clear line.
The problem with the portfolio is that it does not carry any information about the suitability of its holder to the execution of a new order. Works in the portfolio are of two types: previous orders and some abstract "masterpieces" invented by the performer from scratch to show "I can do that." In the first case, the work is created according to the TOR using some source materials from the customer, which often determines styles, theses of articles, design, etc. (the degree of customer influence on the result is not known to the new employer). In the second - the work is performed without taking into account market factors and the audience. Both that, and that makes result absolutely useless to the new customer (though not all potential employers understand it). Portfolio helps to show technical skills: typing, the ability to use the basic functions of Photoshop, etc.
Reputation is about something else. This is about the professional qualities of a specialist, allowing you to use word of mouth to search for new customers.
Despite this attitude to the portfolio, I keep a collection of links to their work. This is required by the market. And I still can not afford to ignore these requirements.
Instead of a conclusion: everything changes
The economic situation and the needs of the market are changing very quickly, so there is no point in spending a lot of energy on working out a career development concept or closing some doors for yourself forever. Today you are a successful specialist with a queue of orders, and tomorrow there will be a new crisis, and you will have to drop price expectations and go to work at McDonalds. But there is nothing irreparable.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/293674/
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