What is a Reasonable Expectation?

Since starting work as freelancers this is a question Agi and I have been wrestling with. As a freelancer there is a certain amount of paranoia that a client could potentially end your relationship without any notice. You want to keep your clients happy but how far does this go? When a client asks for something should you drop everything else?

When you work in a salaried position there is (usually) a clear delineation between your work and off time. If someone asks for something that you think is unreasonable you can push back and you probably won't get fired (not legal advice!). You can feel secure if for no other reason than firing people in most countries is quite a lot of hassle. One of the downsides of freelancing is that there are no guarantees. Clients can come and go with very little notice.

I wrote a post recently about working while travelling. I mentioned that we rarely take any extended time off work; choosing instead to maximise our travel time by working as we go. We are both very happy with this situation and we keep our clients informed to avoid surprises. This can lead to difficult situations though.

If you are on the way to the airport and you receive a client email with a request. Should you fire up your mobile hotspot and try to sort it there and then? If you get back from dinner and you're tired but you see an email asking for an urgent task. Should you do it then or wait for the morning?

Essentially, where is the line? What can a client reasonably expect? What do you owe to yourself? These are tough questions and I don't have definite answers but I'll give you some of my thoughts.

At the start of my freelance career I had only one client and I was terrified of losing them. I made myself available whenever they wanted and jumped on any emails like a teenager waiting for a text from the hot girl in class. Now that I have grown my empire(!) I feel more confident in myself. I have a few clients and I don't feel so dependent on any individual one.

Lesson the first: Diversify your client base

I have worked with my current clients for a reasonably long time now. We have got to know each other and how we work. I know that they will not ask for something urgently unless it really is urgent. Equally, they know that I can be relied upon to get stuff done so they don't ask for constant updates.

Lesson the second: Develop relationships with your clients

The final thought is that, as a freelancer you are taking control of your life. Most of us do this because we don't want to be chained down to a single location or company for 40 years. I don't think we should exchange one type of chain for another. Only you know what you are comfortable with and you should get to know your own limits and expectations. I frequently work on things late at night or in an airport waiting room because I know that I can take time off during normal work hours if I want to.

Lesson the third: Find the level that you are comfortable with

The final point to take away is that freelancing is a kind of adventure. Most people do it because they don't fit the mould so, by definition, no 2 people's experiences will be the same. Get started, find a work style that you are comfortable with and build from there. Let me know how you're getting on. I love to hear your feedback.

Freelancing Frustrations

Have you ever worked a freelance job and then had trouble getting paid by your client? It happens. There is a bill going before New York City council at the moment to help freelancers get paid. That's great but not much help if you don't live in New York. What can you do if you have trouble getting your invoices paid?

I have been following this story about the potential new legislation in New York for a while. You can read the full details of the bill here if that's the kind of thing you're into. I'm a full time freelancer so obviously I approve of anything that makes freelancing more viable. According to a report from the Freelancer's Union 71% of freelancers have reported trouble collecting payment at some point during their career. The report is heavily skewed towards the US market but I think it is representative of global trends.

We here at no9to5 have had our own problems with getting payment. For the most part this has simply been clients needing a little reminder to pay their invoices. Most of our clients are small businesses who are always busy. Paying invoices is something that tends to slip down their priority list unless reminded. This is one reason that finding clients through Upwork is great. Upwork does take 10% but all payments are automatically debited from the client's account and paid to you. 10% is not too much to never have to chase anyone up.

There was one time in particular which I wanted to talk about. Back in the early days of our freelancing career Agi found a client through freelancer.com. The client wanted her to do some web research. To make this especially interesting the client produced a sex toy. They wanted Agi to research as many shops, magazines and websites as possible that they could potentially advertise in or sell to. Only the most committed and energetic of perverts could compete with Agi's web browsing history during that job!

When the job was complete Agi submitted her spreadsheet of research; the "filth sheet" as we affectionately named it. There was no acknowledgement. We waited a few days and sent a message asking for feedback and payment. We received a reply saying it was fine and payment would follow shortly. Nothing. There was no response for 2 months.

It wasn't a huge amount of money so we weren't aggressively pursuing it but after we had sent a number of requests for payment we decided to raise a dispute ticket through Freelancer. This allows you to state your case and gives the client a number of days to respond. The dispute prompted a response from the client who apologised saying that the person who we had been dealing with had "left the business". That may or may not be true, we'll never know but they did finally pay up.

So what lessons can be learned?

1. Whether you like them or not, the freelancing brokers like Upwork, Peopleperhour, Freelancer etc provide a way to dispute problems. They do cost some money but that's the price you pay for security.
2. If you have an issue with non payment don't give up. In our experience we have always received our money eventually. Make sure to keep pestering the client. You shouldn't have to but... life isn't fair.

Until laws similar to the one in New York are enacted everywhere these are pretty much your only options apart from taking your client to court.

To end on a positive note, our freelancer friends and us don't have any horror stories to share. Generally, we do our work and we get paid for it. If you are sensible with who you take as a client and avoid anyone you have reservations about you should be fine. Have you had problems getting paid? We'd love to hear your stories.

Unexpected Pros & Cons of Freelancing

On this site I have talked a lot about how great freelancing is. I also try to be honest and present the downsides. Everybody knows that being able to work from anywhere is fantastic. Everybody also knows that not having a regular, steady paycheque can be problematic. Today I thought I'd talk about some of the lesser known pros and cons of working remotely; the things that have taken me by surprise.

Cons

Last week I mentioned a tool that helps me navigate time differences between me and my clients. The downside of having international clients is that sometimes when they want to talk the time difference goes against you. I recently had a conference call with Sydney, Australia and Salt Lake City, USA. Saying that makes me feel pretty cool (see the pros below) but in order to make it work for everybody the meeting happened at 5am my time. I got an early start on my work that day!

Pro or Con? You Decide

I've read a lot of articles about how to be productive as a freelancer / remote worker. I agree with a lot of the things they say: separate your living and working spaces; maintain a routine etc. One that I totally don't get down with is to dress as if you were going to work. I have never been a clothes horse and I don't like dressing smart. One of the best things for me is that I can work in shorts and t-shirt all the time.

The downside? Recently, 2 of my best friends got married. When the weddings approached I looked in my wardrobe to find - a fine selection of shorts and t-shirts... and little else. As I don't need smart clothes for work I had gradually, largely unintentionally but very thoroughly eliminated all smart clothes from my wardrobe. Cue a quick dash to the department store to find some smart trousers!

Pros

My clients live in quite different parts of the world. Some of them work remotely and move around too. I personally get a kick out of talking to people in other countries and hearing what they are up to. It also makes me feel like a boss player when I say, "I have to run, I've got to speak to Washington." Plus, as documented in this post one of my Australian clients invited me over to visit. Hard to imagine how that would have happened when I had a normal job.

In one of my first posts on this site I talked about how freelancing had got me back into music in a big way. Working by myself lets me listen to whatever I want. I invested in a Spotify subscription and I haven't looked back. I also discovered Noon Pacific, a weekly playlist of funky tunes that I always look forward to. All of this has led to me discovering new artists that I love, rediscovering old favourites and generally spending a lot more of my time listening to music. A definite win!

Most of the jobs in my adult life have involved a whole lot of time indoors. I'm not constantly outdoors now but the flexibility of freelancing means I get to see a lot more sunshine. I even get to work from much nicer locations. Currently I am sitting in my local coworking space which has cool decor, comfy chairs and serves great coffee. A big improvement on some of the factory offices I used to work in!

I'd love to hear about any unexpected things you discovered when working remotely. Alternatively, I'd be glad to tell you more about what I discovered. Drop me a line and let's chat.

My Freelance Tools & Tips

This week I thought I would share a few lessons I have learned while freelancing; mainly from screwing things up, and some tools to help avoid the same problems. If you want some hot tips, read on...

Where to Work?

I often proudly proclaim that "as long as I have my laptop and an internet connection then I can work anywhere!" That is true and it is great but what happens when you suddenly don't have an internet connection?

There was an article on the Upwork blog recently giving suggestions on how to prepare yourself. These are all great tips and I especially endorse the mobile tethering. Tethering is not just great as a backup when your net goes down but it also really enables you to work from anywhere. Anywhere could mean somewhere that's not your home or it could be another country. Whenever I go somewhere new these days my first step is to grab a local data enabled SIM card; in most countries this doesn't cost more than $10 - $20. Mobile data speeds are so good these days that it can often be better than a fixed line.

Another great tip is to know your surroundings and have fallback places to go if power / internet fails. I was looking on Product Hunt the other day and found Workfrom. This tool lets you search for a location and shows you all of the places that you could work. Not just coworking spaces but cafes, libraries etc. If you do want a coworking space then Coworker and the Coworking Wiki are also great tools.

Remember Time Zones

I have clients in several countries and time zones are the bane of my existence. I have an engineering degree but for some reason calculating time differences melts my brain.

Generally, I do not have to speak with clients on a regular basis but when I do time zones are always an issue. In Bangkok I am used to the time difference with my clients so it has become semi-intuitive. However, when travelling that goes out the window! It even goes out the window sometimes just because I'm stupid.

I love World Time Buddy, it's a great app that lets you choose multiple time zones and draw lines between them to see what time (or day) matches your time. I find this especially useful with my clients in the US because quite often we are working on different days; my Tuesday morning is their Monday night. If I relied on myself to work things out I would end up posting things not just at the wrong time but on the wrong day too.

The free version only(!) lets you compare 4 locations at a time. There is a paid version of the app but I have found the free version works great for me. I have never needed to compare 5 different locations at the same time. If that day comes then my life will have changed significantly and I will spring for the paid version!

These are a couple of the tools that I have found useful. What do you use? Get in touch and let me know.

Working as a Freelancer Means WORKING as a Freelancer

I read an article recently about why you shouldn’t be a digital nomad and it really annoyed me. You can read it here. The article isn't new but I hadn't see it before. The author has "done the digital nomad thing" and said that he was unable to feel content without actually working. I’m not quite sure what he thought being a digital nomad was.

Digital Nomad ≠ Backpacker

I have written a lot of articles about how being an online freelancer has enabled us to travel a lot more. This is all 100% true and I am very happy with the lifestyle we have but we WORK to support it. I went to Taiwan for a week and I worked while I was there, often getting up and doing a morning’s work before going to sightsee in the afternoon.

I love the feeling of doing a good day’s work and earning my money. I read an article years ago that said that to be satisfied at work you need the following 3 things:

1. Autonomy: Being in control of our own choices
2. Complexity: Being able to master new skills and improve
3. Direct connection between effort and reward: Seeing the payoff—whether financial, spiritual, or other—of your work

(I couldn’t find the original article but this Buffer article covers the same topics)

I have never been happier in my work life than I am now. Being a freelancer means that I don’t have a boss; I have clients. I can pick and choose who I work for. That’s Autonomy right there.

I have learned new things and been challenged in ways I never expected during my freelance career. Complexity: check.

I know my hourly rate and how many hours I’m billing. Every hour worked has a clear dollar value. The connection between effort and reward could not be more clear. And that’s only financial; the improvement in my life through not commuting to work and being able to spend more time outside is noticeable.

What’s my point?

If you’re going to be a digital nomad you will still need to put in the hours. Being able to travel doesn’t mean that you are on permanent holiday.

I love getting up early, doing a decent day’s work and going out to see something and grab a bite to eat. Living at the same pace as the local people makes me feel like I live there. Also, because you’re working and not on vacation there is no pressure to move move move, see the next sight, take a photo and continue on. You can stay longer and really soak in each place.

Don’t become a digital nomad because you hate working. Become a digital nomad because you want to work in interesting places.

Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

Also, if you're looking for work, 24 Seven is a cool new agency. The link there is to one of their blogs on a similar topic to this post.