Questions for Freelance Artists working for themselves
Hello All,
Just wanted to see what others are experiencing in their journey as a Freelance Professional.
As an Independent Freelance Artist working for yourself...
For me in my experience, frustrations are try to find enough work to keep my pipeline full and dealing with problem clients. Finding work is a full time job in itself, its a constant hustle of searching, marketing, networking, and sales meetings, and accounts receivable. Its takes a lot of time all while juggling the time to actually do the work of quality.
Dealing with clients that are demanding is such a headache. They want the world from you but they also want the work at a cheap price. Some also don't really have a clear vision on what they want and they won't know it until they see it. Another thing is, they are constantly changing their minds. Drives me crazy.
Desires as a freelance professional would be to be able to not worry about having to find the work and just focus on doing great quality work. To hopefully one day build a successful business out of creating artwork for a living and satisfying the clients needs all while being able to sustain a great lifestyle with a family doing what I enjoy.
Just wanted to see what others are experiencing in their journey as a Freelance Professional.
As an Independent Freelance Artist working for yourself...
- What are some of the pains and frustrations you have faced or continue to deal with on a daily basis?
- For those fortunate enough to have no problems, what do you desire most as an independent freelance professional?
For me in my experience, frustrations are try to find enough work to keep my pipeline full and dealing with problem clients. Finding work is a full time job in itself, its a constant hustle of searching, marketing, networking, and sales meetings, and accounts receivable. Its takes a lot of time all while juggling the time to actually do the work of quality.
Dealing with clients that are demanding is such a headache. They want the world from you but they also want the work at a cheap price. Some also don't really have a clear vision on what they want and they won't know it until they see it. Another thing is, they are constantly changing their minds. Drives me crazy.
Desires as a freelance professional would be to be able to not worry about having to find the work and just focus on doing great quality work. To hopefully one day build a successful business out of creating artwork for a living and satisfying the clients needs all while being able to sustain a great lifestyle with a family doing what I enjoy.
Would love to hear what others have experienced and where they would like to go.
Comment below for your answers.
Thanks.
Replies
I get that you want an attention grabbing title to attract replies. But it's overkill and a bit condescending. Just be direct and straightforward, and they will come.
Anyhow, yes I've experienced those same frustrations.
I compiled a bunch of resources for freelancers on our wiki, have you seen them yet?
Sales effort will drop off in time as you grow your client base. For me there were slow times when I had to hustle more, and fat times when I had too much work coming in.
Client mgmt is a skill to learn. Setting clear expectations, and juggling when to be firm vs. yielding, how to "sell" them on the decisions, etc.
This too will improve in time as you find better clients.
For me, I jumped back into FT employment. Much nicer having someone else dealing with all those hassles, and getting steadily paid.
well i have to say, i never did go out actively approaching new clients, not individually also not as a studio, so thats a bit different.
But of course, when i worked alone there have been times of panic about the next gig (WHAT IF THERE IS NONE?!), then taking in too much work and struggling to handle it.
Today this shifted a bit, being responsable for 30-40 artists, i certainly do not freak out for myself anymore, having a team helps juggling things around after this job and on the transition to the next job. But yeah, there was always and will always be this "WHAT IF...?!" factor
but just like any business, you need to stay around long enough and show you got what it takes and those issues will get smaller and smaller. If you can't prove it with your day to day job, you have to improve your personal portfolio.