5 Things I Learned After 5 Years of Freelancing
Conclusions I’ve come to
Photo by Ryan Graybill on Unsplash
January 8, 2023, marked my fifth anniversary as full-time freelancer.
In January 2018, I left my role as national copy chief of Time Out North America in NYC. I had been freelancing on the side for a few months but decided to retry it full-time; freelance editing was one of my jobs when I first moved to NYC, but I knew next to nothing about the magazine publishing world at the time, which made navigating freelance quite difficult. (What pay rates are good pay rates? When is a client’s expectation standard or unreasonable? What does an edit for this type of project usually involve?)
Five years in, I’m still learning a whole lot, but I’ve amassed a humble collection of lessons.
Giving 100% to every project is the best way to get new clients.
The past two years, I’ve experimented with many methods of lead generation and client acquisition. I launched social media, my website, and my newsletter. I applied to jobs on Upwork, LinkedIn, and Indeed. I cold-pitched. Far and away, the best method is referrals.
Of the 12 clients who paid me in 2022, 50% were from referrals. Whereas I worked hard to get the other 50%, all I had to do to get these referral jobs was to do my best on paid projects. In 2021, I landed a big client who hired me because a staffer there had gotten a referral from someone I worked with three years’ prior on a one-time project. Never underestimate the power of providing quality work.
Clients love knowing a reliable person who delivers quality work because it makes them look good to recommend me to their connections who need editing or writing services.
Being a freelancer has made me a more valuable hire.
Working in a more traditional, one-company role, I did my part but never learned how the departments outside of my immediate orbit operated. I was more concerned with my own tasks and responsibilities and didn’t understand the full picture.
As a freelancer, I do invoicing and budgeting, project management, marketing, copywriting, contracts and client acquisitions…in addition to my core services of editing and writing. I have grown so much, and my knowledge of business operations has vastly increased, as has my respect for how businesses of more than one person function 😂
Freelance is a constant experiment, and you have to be comfortable with that to do it.
You might reach a plateau in a full-time, one-company role, but that will never happen in a freelance role.
For me, every year of freelance has looked different than the one before it based on my attitude, my finances, my clients, my accompanying lifestyle.
That’s what most freelancers love about their work. It evolves along with them. It is never finished. I have a long list of things I would love to be doing in my business, each of which will bring a new facet or layer to my work.
The fluidity of freelance can be frustrating and nerve-racking, but it’s exhilarating too. Time never drags; my days fly by.
You can travel while working remotely, but to grow, staying in place is best.
I freelanced full-time for eight months in NYC before I took it abroad. From September 2018 to August 2020, I traveled to Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Peru, and Chile. I moved every two days to three weeks, expect for the last 4.5 months, which I spent in Coyhaique, Chile, and I worked on my laptop the whole time.
I maintained my existing clients but never attempted to get new ones. It wasn’t until I came back to the States to live in my parents’ house during the pandemic that I had endless time to take online courses, create an online presence, and build my client roster.
I never would have had the time (or the desire) to do that as a backpacker. Staying on one place was the only way to focus on it. (And my income doubled from 2020 to 2021 as a result.)
Contracts come in handy before you even use them to take legal action.
They filter out questionable clients.
Once a person contacted me out of the blue to hire me for a project I had never done before. We talked on the phone and she was pleasant, although she seemed slightly unsure of what she wanted. We sent several emails back and forth before agreeing to collaborate.
I sent her the contract and never heard from her again. I consider it a blessing!
2. They help you nail down specifics with clients.
It’s impossible to complete a project well if you don’t know exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. Adding all the project details and expectations to the signed contract encourages each party to be clear.
If you’re writing blog posts for someone, talk about word count, deadlines and frequency, time/pay limits, pay rate (flat fee or hourly?), the onboarding process (will you do a trial period with the option to go your separate ways if it doesn’t work out?), style and voice…everything.
BONUS LESSON
Your relationship with the people you work for will fundamentally change for the better.
I may not have coworkers anymore, but some relationships with my clients border on friendship. Two clients have been with me for nearly six years, and a few more are approaching two years.
By freelancing, I knew I would never have to be pigeon-holed into one role. But I never realized how my professional life would improve by collaborating directly with clients.
As a freelancer, I see the impact of my work. When clients appreciate my contribution, they tell me so. Sometimes when I’m experiencing some imposter syndrome, I read testimonials from clients and am reminded that I’m very good at what I do.
Enjoy this post? Buy me a coffee in support.
Hi, I’m Jaime, editor and owner of Pristine Editing LLC. To get to know me better, and for more editing tips, sign up for my quarterly email newsletter! You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don’t miss out on my free style guide template.
How I Doubled My Business from 2020 to 2021
My aggressive growth plan paid off. Here’s everything I put in motion.
Photo by
on
In August 2020, after more than two years working as a full-time freelancer, I realized that my business had become stagnant. Since I had begun independently providing writing and editing services to clients in early 2018, my business had not changed. My client base largely remained the same, as did the way I operated day to day. Although the work was steady, I knew it was in a precarious position: The loss of one major client would disrupt my business and significantly decrease my income. I had to be better prepared in case that occurred.
What’s more, I knew my business practices needed a refresh. I was curious how investing in my skills and knowledge relating to technology, marketing, and other areas would affect my business. I wanted to see how viable working for myself could be in the long run. So, in mid-2020, I made a plan to aggressively grow my business.
The Early Years of My Business
From January 2018 to August 2020, I relied completely on client referrals. I didn’t have a website, and I didn’t use social media. All of my clients could be traced to the network of contacts I made as a magazine copy editor in NYC. (Most notably, I led the copyediting department at Time Out North America as national copy chief.)
In those two years, I focused on client satisfaction and retention, building a modest yet stable freelance business. I fine-tuned my skills as a copy editor and a line editor for a diverse client base that needed me to edit a wide range of media: short- and long-form online articles, print and digital magazines, video, social media, website copy, books, brochures, apps. I became expert in adjusting my style of editing to each client’s style and voice and each content form.
However, in 2020, my business reached a plateau. It was reliable, but it was not growing. As is common for freelancers, I would often find myself in feast-or-famine situations: Some weeks I would be swamped with work, and other weeks projects would trickle in. I wanted to standardize my workload every week. Plus, the work no longer challenged me. So I developed a plan for a new way forward.
The Aggressive Growth Plan
In September 2020, I took a six-week online freelance-writing course on how to grow a business to $5,000 a month (the subject matter applied to most freelancers of all kinds). That course covered mindset; how to build and manage a website and social media; how to identify your ideal target client; client relations and contracts; negotiating fees; and more.
In December, I began taking online copywriting courses through Copyhackers, the copywriting school started by renowned conversion copywriter Joanna Wiebe. Those courses helped me better understand how to write landing pages, web copy, and emails that would attract and convert visitors. I intended to use those skills not only to improve my own business but also to potentially expand into another area of expertise.
By taking those courses, I educated myself on how to market my writing and editing business to a target audience and generate new leads without relying only on referrals. I discovered how to take advantage of free tools that made it easier for potential clients to find my business, learn about my services, and interact with me.
For example, I created a lead magnet — a free customizable editorial style guide template — to draw subscribers to my new quarterly newsletter. I wrote and set up an automated five-email welcome sequence using MailerLite, an email marketing software, to efficiently engage with and retain subscribers. I launched a website, a blog on Medium, and social media accounts (Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest). I also used Typeform to create an online project request form that clients could fill out in two minutes to contact me and share their project details.
Next, I began to pursue new client leads and projects by applying to gigs on Upwork and Indeed, focusing on long-term collaboration.
As business began to grow significantly, I had to learn how to become more productive and efficient with my time. I began to track my daily word count, which eventually enabled me to understand how many words I could realistically edit in a day while managing other tasks like emailing, content production, and invoicing. Instead of relying on a to-do list, I scheduled time for every task in a timeboxed calendar.
A More Efficient, Lucrative, Sustainable Business
From 2020 to 2021, I doubled my income. I gained eight new clients in 2021, all regular or returning: two from Upwork, two from social media, three through referrals (one from an Upwork client), and one through an online application.
Between June and December 2021, I grew my email list from 0 to 24 subscribers (today there are 29), and the last email I sent had a 50% open rate. I launched my editing Instagram in November 2020, and it generated a client by April 2021. I regularly generate leads through LinkedIn. Seven prospects have contacted me through my online project request form, and three have become clients.
My online presence has given me more credibility and has made it easier for potential clients to explore my services. I’ve even developed stronger relationships with clients because they can engage with and learn about me through multiple platforms. Overall, the effort I put into taking classes and applying what I learned evolved my business, making it not only more lucrative but also more efficient and sustainable for the long term.
Enjoy this post? Buy me a coffee in support.
Hi, I’m Jaime, editor and owner of Pristine Editing LLC. To get to know me better, and for more editing tips, sign up for my quarterly email newsletter! You can also follow me on LinkedIn and Instagram. And don’t miss out on my free style guide template.