7 things I wish my friends knew about freelancing

Unless you're into a bit of freelancing yourself, you probably won't know a great deal about the life someone signs up to when they decide they're not going to work for anyone else anymore. Chances are, even the stuff you think you know about freelancing or being self-employed in any form is based in some part on misconceptions, and the biggest one is that if someone is running their own business, they’ve already ‘made it’. Believe me, we’re all still very much in the making.

This is all fine and doesn’t need to concern you, of course, unless you have friends who are freelancing or self-employed. If you do, you may want to read on.

I've honestly always felt that a number of people in my social circle don't really have a clue what I'm doing or how I'm doing it (in terms of being self-employed, I mean). It gets me down a bit, and reminds me of when I had a baby, and suddenly lost contact with most of the people in my friendship groups who didn’t have kids themselves. They didn't understand, and I couldn't blame them, but it still hurt.

There are certain things I wish my friends knew, understood or even just seemed to care a little bit more about in terms of the life I've chosen since walking away from my 'real job' several years ago. I know it works both ways, and that I can't claim I'm 100% invested in anyone's 9-5, but I at least know what my employed friends do, and I'm always there to celebrate the promotions, commiserate the redundancies, and to share in laughter and tears about the times that bitch Janice in Accounts has been the focus of the working day.

I've put this piece together, because I think that if you're good mates with someone who's chosen - for whatever reason - to go into freelancing or self-employment, you should think a little about making their business, your business.

1. No, we can't just take time off. Yes, we can pick and choose if and when we take time off, but each time we down tools, it comes at a cost. That cost is the fact that if we're not working, we're not earning. It's a very real possibility that we've actively turned down work in order to have even so much as an afternoon 'off', so that time away is actually losing us money, and that’s always at the back of our minds – especially in the early days. We signed up to this life, of course, but we need our friends to understand, because sometimes you seem a bit confused that we can't just book a day's holiday at last the minute and pay for something of great cost in place of it. We sometimes don’t know if or when the next project is coming in, and that makes us more than a bit precious over our workdays.
2. Yes, we're our 'own boss' - but that's fucking horrible, at times. If the shit hits the fan at any point or time in our business, we can't blame it on the boss, the apprentice, or whoever used to do the job before we did. Freelancers in particular play all of those roles, and so the buck always stops with us. Yes, we could just suck it up and move on in the event of a screw-up, but any such incident might just mean that we don't get an invoice paid at the end of the month as a result. You have no idea what a wonderful safety net a salary is until it's not there anymore, and you painfully remember that it was actually your decision to toss that net in the trash in the first place.
3. We can't bank on our money. The biggest killer of small businesses is cashflow. We have zero guarantees in terms of what cash we're going to see ‘flowing’ into our account each month. We get clients who are slow payers. We get clients who are non-payers. Sometimes, we get no clients at all! This is before we even think about the outgoings we need to spend to cover the unavoidable and the unexpected, to keep our business going if not growing. What I'm getting at is this... be a little mindful, especially in the early days, about the fact that our disposable income from freelancing (or similar) can often leave us somewhat indisposed.
4. You might be our "It's who you know". As a person with a 'real' job, you have no clue how lucky you are that you'll probably never have to spend half of your working week at a business breakfast networking event. But, you do have a natural network, and you do probably sit in your fair share of meetings. They say in business, “It's not what you know, it’s who you know”. You might know someone in your work or wider circle who can offer us an opportunity - to earn, to grow, to get our name out there. If you know someone who may have what we need, then oh my god, please have the conversation with them and get us an introduction. It may never come to anything, but it will mean the world to us that you tried. Our clients don’t appear by magic – we work hard to go out and get them. The more you can help us to do that, the more likely we’ll be able to take that day off you keep asking us about.
5. For the love of god, support our stuff on social media. When we put out posts on our business accounts and pages, we're not posting for vanity or an ego trip. We're posting because we need people to know about what we do and how we can help them. There's no handout we get if we have a bad month and nobody buys from us. We need to sell, and we need your support to make sure people know about it. It’s social media in action, and it is literally at your fingertips. Give our stuff a like, a share, a comment, an emoji of your choice... anything to show us that you value the fact that we're putting ourselves out there. You may not ever need our product or service yourself, but as with my previous point on this list, there may be people in your personal or professional network who do. If you can like the latest posts of your favourite celebrities, you can like the latest posts from your favourite people in real life, too.
6. Please don't expect ‘mates rates’. We really would love to give our friends lower prices on our products and services because we love you and stuff, but please remember that as our friend, we hope you'll value what we do, and we know you'll want to be supportive of the fact that we're trying to make a living, here. You'd be astounded how many times freelancers and start-up businesses alike get bartered, ghosted and almost made to feel bad by potential clients who demand a lower price on everything before they've even considered the value we bring... please don't be the friend that does that to us, too. If we're in a place to offer, we will.
7. This is so much more than ‘just a job’. My final point on this whole matter takes us right back to before my list even started. If you're a good friend, you really do need to make it your business to know about our business. It's our baby (even if we also have a baby), and it's a huge part of our life.. We probably know the ins and outs of the office politics where you work, so get involved with ours. Ask us about our clients, for a start... we have some bloody brilliant stories we could tell you, believe me!

I played around with the order of these points for much longer than it even took me to write them, and that's because I couldn't make up my mind about which were the most important. I'm not going to cliché this by saying that they're all as important as each other, but instead I want to highlight that when all of these things come together, they become quite powerful.

As I’ve already mentioned, I know that it's a bit like talking to friends who have kids when you don't have them yourself... it's hard to relate, you don't really know what to say, and you just assume that they have other people who can help them. But, much like an exhausted parent just wants to offload their woes and share their wins with you, your friends with business babies want to do exactly the same.

Again, much like an exhausted parent, it’s those conversations with the people we love that remind us that yes, we can do this.

If you enjoyed this foray into freelancing, please check out the follow-up: And another thing about freelancing (and self-employment)

Shameless self promotion alert! If you love my blogs and would like to start writing your own in order to benefit your business, please find out how by clicking HERE!