This month’s Entrepreneur Magazine has a great article entitled Freelance Nation. Those of us who freelance for all or part of our living know that companies have been hiring writers, designers, and other freelance folk for years, so it’s not exactly breaking news. But it’s interesting to see things from the client side and understand the legal, financial, and other challenges they face when they hire us. Heck, some of us may be hiring freelancers ourselves in an effort to grow our businesses.
If you haven’t read the article yet, take a few minutes to check it out. I’ll wait here.
What does the so-called “freelance nation” mean for us?
The thing that struck me was how important it is (and will increasingly be) for freelancers to communicate their value to potential clients. I cringed at the part about using freelance job boards like Elance, because those sites seem to send the message that freelancers are a dime a dozen and, in some cases, that there are countless workers overseas clamoring for your project, willing to undercut each other on price. That may be true, but you get what you pay for, and you probably won’t get the same level of professionalism as you would from someone who comes through a referral.
So, as clients realize how many options they have available to them, freelancers need to really think about what skills and qualities they offer that make them more valuable than the other guy. Is it your specialized knowledge of the industry that means less hand-holding on the part of the client? Your ability to synthesize long, wordy briefs and make them interesting to the layperson? Or something else? And, of course, none of us want to be see as the kind of contractor mentioned who only views the client as another paycheck, so a little personalized, genuine attention goes a long way.
A sidebar mentions that for tax reasons, most contractors should be paid by the project rather than by the hour to differentiate themselves from employees in accordance with IRS standards. In my opinion, this is good news for freelancers, because it gives us an IRS-approved reason to price this way and emphasizes the value of our work rather than putting a price tag on our time. Some companies see freelancers more as temporary employees, so this approach not only delineates us in the eyes of the IRS, but in our clients’ eyes, too. Temps are generally hired as labor, but freelancers are hired for their creativity and/or brain power. (And as we all know, muses don’t always follow a strict schedule.)
No doubt about it: new economic realities have changed the way freelancers and companies do business. And in many ways, that’s a good thing. Though there are more challenges (clients that want top-quality work on the cheap, competitors who are willing to work at bargain basement rates, perpetuating this expectation), there are also more opportunities emerging.
What do you think? Have you observed some of these themes in your own freelance relationships? And for you veteran freelancers, how has your business changed over the last few years?
