On Wednesday 26 April, we hosted a really interesting event – in partnership with Creative Lancashire – called The Freelance Dream; Myth or Reality?
The goal of The Freelance Dream was to get to the bottom of the question – is working as a freelancer as good as it seems? To find out, we invited four freelancers to speak on our panel where they shared what they love and hate about freelancing, relayed their experiences, and answered questions from the audience.
On our panel, hosted by Catarina King, we welcomed Garth Dew, Mich Bondesio, Tim Bridges, and Rachel Simpson.
Garth Dew – a video producer from Preston. His company, GD Video, works with marketing teams, agencies and business owners to produce films for web and social. Past clients include Volvo, Speedo and Autodesk.
Mich Bondesio – Mich Bondesio wears many hats as a solo entrepreneur, freelance writer, author, coach and podcaster. She is the founder of Creating Cadence (previously Growth Sessions) and an Entrepreneur in Residence at the University of Central Lancashire.
Tim Bridges – a graphic designer otherwise known as Secret Industries. Tim’s branding and personal work celebrates all things Northern, and empowers the people and places we love.
Rachel Simpson – a graphic designer with over 17 years experience. After working at two of the UK’s biggest agencies, Rachel set up Bird, her own agency.
The conversation was so illuminating and full of insights, anecdotes and advice.
Here's a few key takeaways from the discussion:
Freelancing is not a walk in the park. It takes effort and a business mindset. Our panel all agreed that in order to be freelance, you have to run your business like just that – a business. It takes a strong will to be the accountant, marketing team, boss, employee, of a one-man team. As Garth said, if you just want to do creative work and hate selling and marketing, you might be better off working a traditional job.
Multiple income streams are a huge help – diversify your offerings and where your money comes from to ensure that if one of your income streams dries up, you won’t be stuck.
The best way to market your business is to be great at what you do. If you’re the best at what you do, your work will speak for itself.
To be a freelancer, you’ll need a thick skin. Dealing with rejection, periods of drought, dealing with/firing bad clients, and other ups and downs come with the job – and it’s a freelancers job to handle them all and not let themselves get too discouraged. Our panel all agreed that after years of freelancing, they still experience imposter syndrome and doubts. It was generally agreed it takes years to get to the point where you’re absolutely comfortable, but sticking with it will get you to where you need to be.
We also discussed the logistics of hiring other freelancers to help with bigger projects or take some of the load off – in particular to take on some of the jobs you don’t love to spend a lot of time on.
When Catarina asked the panel if they believe they’ve achieved the freelance dream – the consensus was “we’re getting there!” Despite all the ups and downs, every single member of the panel said they wouldn’t trade being freelance for anything and that the headaches, long nights, and ups and downs have all been worth it.
Thank you to everyone who attended The Freelance Dream . We’re looking forward to hosting more events like this in the future, so if you couldn’t attend, keep your eyes peeled for the next ones!