Listen to the Episode

 

Wayne: Today, we’re going to be talking, much like we always do, about freelancing. But instead of … we’re going to take a slightly different approach to the whole freelancing thing because we talk about freelancing a lot, and we talk about how great it is and how much we love freelancing and how we think it’s the future of employment, blah blah blah blah blah. But the thought occurred to me the other day of, well, actually, there’s loads of stuff that is not great about freelancing.

Wayne: So essentially, this episode is if freelancing is so great, what’s the catch? That’s the episode today.

Cem: Yeah, I think people always look at freelancers as, “Ah, yes! This is the way of employment.” Everybody who’s in nine to five things, yeah, actually, everyone’s taught, all my friends have gone freelance, and they’re saying how good it is, how free it is, how they’ve got time to do their own things, they’ve got their own clients, they’re making more money, and I mean, that all does come with freelancing, but then also, there’s other factors that you have to consider beforehand.

Cem: Like for me, when I went freelance, one of the main things is: number one, money is the huge issue. You’ve got to have enough clients to kind of cover the bases, whether that’s your rent, whether that’s your bills, but also, one of the other scary things is actually managing your own time for the first time. Like, you don’t have to go into an office nine to five, and then, suddenly, you’ve got to manage your time. You’ve got clients that are relying on you, and this can be completely crazy for someone who’s never had to do that before.

Wayne: Yeah, and this is just … there’s all those elements because essentially when you’re freelancing – and I think it’s so often to kind of gloss over this fact – when you are freelancing, you are running a business. And yes, you might be on your own as a kind of sole trader, but you are running a business, and so because of that, you have all of the business costs that come with it.

Wayne: The kind of genesis for this episode, as I was just saying to Cem, was I was walking towards the office the other day to kind of like my main client, and I was thinking specifically about being an actor and all my membership costs for trade union and stuff like that, and I thought, “Actually, yeah. Sometimes I do have a bit of envy for those people that do just have a day job. They go there. They do the job. They leave. They get money. And they go home, and they sit in front of Netflix for the rest of the night.” Like, I have a bit of envy for that because I was thinking about it, and I was like, “Yeah. The only money they have to put into their job and their career is their travel costs, and maybe trade union memberships and stuff like that.” Whereas I’m having to put money into my marketing materials, I’m having to put money into my memberships for casting websites-

Cem: Accounting and stuff, accountants-

Wayne: Accountants. And research and equipment and all that sort of stuff-

Cem: Insurance.

Wayne: I spend about, and get this, according to my latest figures, I spend in the region of about 500 to 600 quid per month on my career, based off of my expenses. That does include travel, of course, so you can probably deduct about 200 quid off that, but that’s still 400 quid a month on my job.

Cem: A good point you say is look at it as a business, like a business requires an accountant. A business requires marketing to get the word out there. A business requires actually going to meet new clients, which means travel. It means for me, when I had camera equipment, I had to insure that camera equipment. I had to have public liability insurance for certain filming I’ve done, and so like you say, it is easy when you’ve just got that nine-to-five because you know that somebody in that organization has got all those bases covered, but now you’ve got to do it, and so again, these are things that the sooner you know about them, the easier you can overcome them. You’ll be like, “Okay, cool. QuickBooks is only 10 pound a month,” or, “My insurance is 60 pound a year,” and etc. etc., and so you can find better ways of doing it, and obviously, we’ve always spoke about the upside of freelancing.

Cem: If you do it right, and you put these things in place, then actually there are some great rewards. Like we say, the ceiling is not there. You can get as many clients as you want. You can maybe start hiring and stuff like that, getting extra help, but I think it’s good to know that actually, freelancing sounds amazing to people that have heard their friends who have gone into it, or again, if it’s an option of you’re hating your job, it means that it’s something different that seems like it could be amazing. It could work really well for you, but again, it’s just making sure that you see the areas where there are some catches. There are some new things you’re going to have to put in place, which you’ve never come across before.

Wayne: Yeah. And you kind of touched on what I was kind of touch on a little bit there is obviously you have all these catches to being freelance, but they kind of are outweighed by the positives I think, because essentially, the question you have to ask yourself, whether it’s, “Do I get free employment?” Or “Do I go freelance?” Is like, okay, if you go free employment, you have one stream of income, essentially, or maybe two, if you’ve got two jobs. So one or two streams of income. You don’t have really any flexibility, and you’re working these hours, you have to go into the office usually, although that’s starting to change. The positives are you’re only having to pay for your travel. Sometimes that’s even covered for you if you’ve managed to negotiate that very well. You don’t have to take your work home with you.

Wayne: You can just clock out and be done, whereas with freelancing, you have all these extra expenses. The security is not as high to begin with, but then when you start building up clients, you’re actually in a more secure position. The kind of barrier to entry is a lot higher with freelancing because you have to be able to replace, generate enough income through various clients, but you know, obviously you don’t have to go begging for a pay raise because you can just up your prices. You might lose a client or two or struggle to get more clients on board, so you have to be careful. But you can just go, “Yeah, I need to earn more,” and up your prices.

Wayne: You can also, and this is one of the things that I’ve always thought when I managed to go 100% freelance on client work, is the idea of … because I’m a night owl, I’ve always been a night owl, I’ve tried to become a morning person, and I think I always will be a night owl, I could have the whole day to myself, and then do my work between the hours of say 8:00 PM and 2:00 AM. Work at full capacity because that’s when I’m at my peak, and then be good.

Wayne: And just that freedom and flexibility to be able to do that is, I think, outweighs the negatives personally.

Cem: Yeah. I think, as I say, the freelance thing is, the ceiling to earning is not there. But actually you are taking on all the responsibilities in every other area that usually your employer would cover.

Wayne: But there’s a lot more pressure, and that’s … I think that is ultimately the negative. If you were to sum everything that’s negative about being a freelancer, up into one thing, I would say it’s pressure. It’s financial pressure from both ends because you’re having to spend more on your job, but you’re also having to find more … it’s more difficult to get that initial kind of threshold of, “This is how much I need to earn.”

Wayne: The buck stops with you, so you can’t turn around and be like, “Oh, well my boss said this,” or “My boss said that,” or you know, whoever. The buck stops with you, and the quality of work has to be good. You have to deliver it on time. There is no room for complacency as a freelancer. That’s ultimately the crux of the issue. You cannot be complacent, because the moment you become complacent, it’s just the moment that you start losing clients or the moment that things just start to fizzle out, and you just can’t take your foot off the gas. Even at 9:00 PM.

If you want any questions answered, or if you have any ideas for anythings you’d like us to address, send us an email, Wayne@powerfulnonsense.com or Cem@powerfulnonsense.com, or you can look us up on the Twitterz @PN_Podcast, and we will take it into consideration. And also, please do leave us a nice little review on the old iTunes. It really does help get the word out there for the show. Five stars or more, greatly appreciated.