CareerFoundry is the world’s first career accelerator for vocational tech skills and CMO, Emil Lamprecht shares his "5 steps" to becoming a successful freelancer.
So you’re reading this because you want to become a freelancer. You’ve thought about what you want to freelance in, you’ve got a couple of useful email addresses and you’ve even bought yourself some sweatpants that will look great with your slippers.
Emil Lamprecht is CMO and Creative Director @Career_Foundry, a mentored learning platform for Web Development and UX Design. He is an avid startup and personal advisor in Berlin and 7 year freelancer with clients across the globe. Lover of stories, advice and knowledge exchange, he would love you to get in touch with him if you enjoyed this article: @EmilLamprecht
So you’re ready to dump that job and get cracking on your first assignment, right?
Wrong.
One of the biggest misconceptions about freelancing is that you sit at home and work comes to you. When the reality is you have to fight for it, and fight hard.
As our friend Leif Kendall aptly put it:
“First: you must strive. Nothing good is ever easy.”
I hate to break it to you, but working freelance means working. And I mean really working. Unlike your 9-5 cubicle, there is nothing cushy about freelancing, nothing stable about it until YOU have made it that way.
But there are some simple secrets to becoming a successful freelancer which I am going to share with you in this blog post. In fact, using these steps – and a bit of determination – I’ve seen people get out of their desk jobs and start working comfortably for themselves in 30 days.
If they can do it, so can you. As Leif told it:
“Your first few days, weeks and months are probably going to be challenging, and likely to take everything you’ve got.”
So what did I do when I first went freelance?
Let’s be clear here, because what I did-what made me successful-was done BEFORE I went freelance, not after. Granted, my path to the flexible profession was abnormal. Having decided in college that “normal jobs” weren’t my thing, I used time in between studying and a karaoke bar job to set myself up. But when you read how I made the transition, you’ll realise that if you have any experience in your field at all, you’ve got it easier than I did. Just always remember that becoming a successful freelancer doesn’t begin the day you quit your job, but the day you decide it’s the lifestyle for you.
In between deciding to become a freelancer and becoming a freelancer, you need to prepare to be a freelancer.
So how did I do that?