Biggest Mistakes I made when going freelance

After working in advertising agencies and marketing departments for over a decade, I made the decision to pursue a freelance career as a creative and marketing consultant.

Working for myself allows me to work with clients who align with my values, establish a mutually respectful relationship, helps me to me more goal-motivated than ever, and provides me flexibility over my working hours.

If I'm completely honest, I had an easy start as a freelancer.

To my shock, within a couple of weeks of making the decision, I already had 3 significant clients. All with amazing products, and all were a joy to work with.

As I progressed with my freelance business, I began to see that I was being approached more and more often by people wanting to work with me. I got to a point where I was unable to take on any more projects and needed to delegate or refer onto other people in my network.

It was like this for almost 2 years. I couldn't believe how lucky I had been.

Then, everything changed.

Within a few months I had clients unable to continue work with me due to budget challenges, another client failing to pay invoices and therefore having to terminate big projects with them, I faced administration and tax challenges, and all whilst the market itself has become so competitive that suddenly finding new work felt like an impossible task.

But it wasn't all down to bad luck - I made some big mistakes which made this crash a lot harder to deal with.

So here's what I've learnt.

My biggest mistakes since going freelance

1. I undersold myself.

Going back to my first week or two of trying to find clients, I made the mistake of wanting to undersell my services. I was panicking, desperate to find a client soon so that I could justify the leap to freelance, I applied to every and any job I could and offered incredibly low rates (thinking that clients would be attracted to the money save).

They weren't.

Everyone wants to save money in their hiring, but even a cheap candidate causes a business loss if they aren't the right candidate.

I was offering 11 years of marketing experience for around ￡20-￡30 an hour. Which I quickly learned, only leads to three assumptions from potential clients:

1. I'm lying about my experience ("Too good to be true" mentality).
2. The quality I deliver will be poor.
3. I'm desperate for a job and will take anything (This signals to the client that you're not in demand by other people, lowering your desireability.)

If a client's budget is low, they expect to be hiring someone with an experience level to match it.

So what did I do instead?

I took a step back for a couple of days. I thought hard about the type of client I want to attract, and the unique service I felt I could offer them.

Then I tripled my hourly rate and tried again.

Within a week I had 3 clients, and this wasn't a one-off fluke - They kept coming in for the next year and a half.

I learned two important lessons from this mistake:

1. Do not undersell yourself. Don't be unreasonable with your rates, but also make sure that your rates reflect your full experience and skills.
2. Desperation is a turn-off for clients. Be confident in what you offer, keep a clear mind and never beg or scramble for "any" job. Keep the right mindset, be consistent and the work will come.

2. I became complacent.

This was my biggest mistake.

Things had been so easy for so long that I neglected my back-up plans.

When I started as freelance, I made sure to spend some time once a week looking for new client opportunities. Going back to my last point ...

I was seeing huge success attracting clients because I was reaching out to them at a time when I didn't need them. I wasn't desperate.

As my business progressed and my personal life became busy, I neglected this for a while. I had a strong client base, I was very busy, and I didn't see outreach as a priority.

That's when everything started to fall apart.

The thing with freelance work is that everything can fall apart suddenly through no fault of your own - You need to make sure you have a plan for when that happens.

I didn't.

And because of that, I was left scrambling for work, giving off a sense of desperation to the clients I was approaching, and doing so when the market was at its worst.

Had I continued my consistent outreach even through my busier periods, this may not have happened.

3. I didn't set clear enough boundaries from the start.

This one is more client-centric, so I won't go into the personal stories, but I will give you a list of things you need to establish before starting the work with any new client (or company, for that matter):

1. What exactly is included in your pay, and what would you charge for additional work which is likely to arise in the future.
2. What are their exact expectations from you for their money, both in terms of deliverables (eg. 2 articles per week) and results (eg. increase in website sales).Often businesses invest in marketing help thinking that their aim is to boost brand presence or to simply "be more active" - Then realise a few months down the line that the activity hasn't shown a strong enough return on investment. Push your clients to find out exactly what their business goals are and how your strategy can be pivoted to help them achieve these goals (often what they pitch as deliverables will not align with the activities which will actually help them get to these goals) - Using initiative and having their main goals in mind is how you establish long-term client relationships.
3. Be very clear before starting work what the process and timeline will be if the client does not pay an invoice. Then stick to that exact process if the issue arises down the line.
4. Be clear on turnaround time. You are likely balancing several projects, so if a client messages you out of the blue asking for a piece of work within the hour, it's very likely you can't deliver. Being clear about the lead time needed for urgent requests prior to starting any work together can save you a lot of stress in the long-term.

4. I didn't market myself.

As someone who is confident creating marketing strategies for any business, it may sound odd that I didn't think to market my own services in the same way.

If you've read this far, you're likely a marketing specialist yourself.

So if you want to get more clients, take a step back and simply imagine what you would do if this business was your client.

Shifting your perspective and getting over that hump (usually caused by feeling vulnerable with personal content) is a long-term strategy which won't yield immediate results, but will mean you are top of people's minds when they are seeking your services. Do this for long enough and eventually you'll have a stream of leads coming to you organically.

Are you a freelancer who has made any of these mistakes? Or have you made any big mistakes that I didn't mention here? Let me know!

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