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.

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.

My General Resolutions

I have been doing a lot of thinking recently about what it takes to be a successful freelancer. This sort of coincides with the new year but that is more coincidental than intentional. The following are some ideas about how to achieve more as a freelancer which may, from a distance, bear a resemblance to new year’s resolutions.

Continue Your Professional Development

I worked for 3 major international business prior to becoming a freelancer. All 3 of those companies invested a large amount of money in ongoing professional development. I had courses covering a wide range of topics from effective communication to project management to being a good leader. Some of these courses were great, some were good and some felt like a waste of time. However, most courses taught me something that I could use in my life.

Since becoming a freelancer I have not done a single minute of training. All of my time has been focussed on earning money, finding new clients or having fun. Those are all very important but it has been clear to me recently that I need to continue developing my skills. Clients’ needs change and I need to be able to meet them if I want to continue earning money, finding new clients and having fun.

Professional development doesn’t have to be expensive or arduous. The internet is literally overflowing with free courses to learn web development, graphic design, ancient Sumerian agricultural practices... you name it. I have invested time recently in studying HTML & CSS, something that my clients need. I did this using the Odin Project, a free resource to learn all aspects of web development. I am also going to become an Infusionsoft Certified Partner. Infusionsoft is something I have been getting more involved in over the past year and want to do more of. The certification is not cheap but it is something I enjoy and should enable me to get more business at higher rates of pay in 2016.

Invest in Yourself

Long before becoming a freelancer I have been a frugal man. I hate spending money frivolously. I even hate spending money non-frivolously. Show me something that I want to have, is a good investment and useful for work and I will hem and haw about spending the money for months. If there is a cheaper option then I will almost always choose that.

Another thought I have had recently is that my frugal nature has been counterproductive to my work. I needed a new computer last year and I set myself a low budget. I found a laptop that was good, not great and bought it. Since then it has consistently disappointed me; boot time is painful, there are frequent lags and it just isn’t really what I need.

Part of being a freelancer is knowing what you need to do a good job. If you worked in an office that consistently bought sub standard computers and equipment you would complain that the company was hampering your ability to do a good job. Being a freelancer is no different except that you are the one in control of the budget! If you scrimp on your equipment then you are harming no-one but yourself.

I recently bit the bullet and bought myself a new MacBook Pro. It has been like a breath of fresh air. It boots up in under 30 seconds, it never hangs on a screen and I can have as many applications open as I want. I often comment that one of the best things about being a freelancer is that I can work anywhere I have my laptop and an internet connection. Therefore the most important piece of equipment for me is my laptop and I should invest in a good one. I’m not advising you to spend money you don’t have but make sure you give yourself the best chance to do the work you want to do.

A few thoughts for the new year. As I mentioned, these aren’t new year’s resolutions exactly but more like lifetime resolutions. What lifetime resolutions have you made? Let me know here.

How to Survive Christmas as a Freelancer

I've talked a lot about how much I love freelancing... and I do! However, I feel I should present a balanced view. Christmas is a time that presents unique challenges for the freelancers among us. In this article I will explain some of those challenges and my personal recommendations for overcoming them.

Allegedly (I have no idea where this figure comes from) 78% of freelancers miss having a company Christmas party. Personally, I never cared about Christmas parties and usually looked for an excuse to miss them. If that paints me as a misanthrope then clearly freelancing was the right choice for me! However, it does tie into the issue I've mentioned about loneliness as a freelancer.

If you get lonely during the festive period there are more and more opportunities to make your own Christmas party. Check on meetup.com and similar sites for digital nomad events in your area. Do you use a coworking space? There's a good chance they will arrange something or will be open to the idea if you suggest it.

The main issue I want to talk about today is the fact that everyone disappears over Christmas. This is actually part of a broader issue. There have been a number of times that Agi and I have had to deal with flakiness from clients. The situation usually goes down something like this: a new or current client can't send work through because they are too busy.

This week is flat out, I'll get something to you next week.

This creates a difficult situation - while waiting for the new work to come through you are not getting paid. Should you look for something else and risk not having time for the work when it does come through? Should you wait for the new work and not get paid in the meantime? This gives you plenty of opportunity to catch up on TV but it doesn't pay the bills!

Christmas is this problem writ large. Nearly everybody takes some time off over Christmas which means there is a good chance you'll miss work over the period. Most people are so busy on a daily basis that they won't have work prepared for their freelancer to keep them going over Christmas. I'm not trying to write a sob story for freelancers; I still prefer it to any other job I've ever had. Also, if you can afford it then why not take a break over the Christmas period?

What to do about it?

Develop good relationships with clients

If you are your clients have a good working relationship then you can discuss things openly. Clients who value you will want to make sure you are OK and able to keep working for them in future. They will take the time to give you extra work if you want it. They may pay you a bonus or a retainer to help you over the dry period.

Look for recurring tasks

A lot of clients may have recurring tasks that need to happen at any time of year. If you deal with these on a regular basis then let your client know that you are available to continue them over Christmas.

Prepare for the down time

This is probably the best option. Working freelance requires that you are well aware of your finances. Any time that you want to take a holiday you will need to prepare and save some cash.  If you are already doing this then put something aside to cover the Christmas dry spell.

I hope these tips are useful to you. If you would like more then we love to talk freelancing... why not get in contact?