You are not a freelancer. Is that description limiting how you see yourself. Are you a business with clients? Then stop calling yourself a freelancer. Freelancer is a temporary employee.
Freelancer— according to Merriam Webster: a person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any one employer.
The operative word is “Employer” and implies an employer/employee dynamic, albeit a temporary one.
Freelancers look for jobs. They get booked. They sell time and are expected to do the work themselves. They’re temporary employees (aka hired guns), are directed by a supervisor/manager, tend to work on site and earn based on hours worked. Does that sound like you?
Businesses on the other hand look for clients (or even better, accounts). They look for project awards. They sell projects and are expected to run the projects. Sometimes this is a solo endeavor while at other times can include several people. They conduct marketing, sales, negotiations, provide estimates, terms of payments, build scope of work documents, have payment terms, work offsite, work independently, aren’t directed, and tend to bid on a project basis.
Interact and watch us in real time on the Futur’s live stream.
Branding Video w/ Yo Santosa
https://youtu.be/mnSgHLBpOpw
Annotations
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01:09 What’s Artlist.io?
06:23 Precision of language: why does it matter?
07:48 Freelancer vs. Employer / Employee Relationship
15:10 The problem of hiring freelancers through booking agents and headhunters
15:58 How to find freelance work in agencies
17:38 Expansion & Contraction Hiring Model
18:05 Five criteria for being an independent contractor
20:11 You are a business owner – not a freelancer
21:48 What a business owner does
25:00 Feedback from the audience – Q: What did you think freelancing was before this conversation?
32:47 Limiting Beliefs: Guilt Complex
36:36 Businesses need to make a profit – freelancers just bill for their time
39:47 Commerce & Art
40:20 Q: How do you take freelance work and put it in your portfolio when you are transitioning from freelancer into an agency?
43:40 Q: How do you balance being an employee and having side-projects at the same time?
44:45 Q: What about maintaining both a company image and a solo one?
45:27 Q: How do you teach value to your clients?
48:15 Q: Can a one-person team call themselves an agency?
50:20 Q: How do you find what freelance projects suit you best?
53:22 Value Exchange & Entrepreneur / Executive Producer
1:00:00 Simple Rule for Project Bids
1:02:34 Entrepreneurs look for clients & accounts – not jobs.
1:03:55 Q: I was a full-time designer at an agency but left to learn coding and freelance, does that look unfavorable?
1:05:39 Q: As an employee leaving a company and starting my own agency, is it okay to offer services to a company that I left?
1:06:25 Q: How does transitioning into an agency affect the rate?
1:08:28 Q: I’ve been freelancing for an agency that won’t give me permission to show my work on my portfolio. What are my options?
1:10:20 Q: How can I convince my client that I’m not a freelancer?
1:11:05 Q: Reminder – Check out our The Futur facebook page
1:12:42 Q: I’m a full-time employee in an advertisement agency. Is it ethical to get clients in the same city for my own part-time business?
1:15:26 How to get better clients: In-depth Course
1:16:00 Q: I own a smart business working with clients, would it be smart to freelance in an agency to learn?
1:19:05 Q: How do I make the transition from being a freelancer to a business man?
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Credits:
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