Freelance By Design

You're a freelance creative. Do you need a resumé? That depends on how you find clients. For freelancers who promote their creative services to clients directly, the portfolio is what attracts. In this episode I share the reasons why a resumé is not necessary and how to use your portfolio website as your primary marketing tool.

Have you encountered opinions that if you're a freelancer you don't have a real business? Or that you shouldn't call yourself a freelancer at all because it means you're a misclassified and employee who's being taken advantage of by your clients? Since I keep running into these discussions I decided to bring the case that a freelancer — no matter what industry — is indeed a business owner and should operate as such. In this episode I outline a variety of ways that freelancers demonstrate a business mindset. Freelancer and business owner aren't mutually exclusive ideas.

If you're a freelancer you're not an employee. Yet many independent contractors position themselves as an employee for all practical purposes when working with clients. This approach can end up costing you in a number of ways. The difference between independent contractorship and employee status lies not only in your intention but also in your actions. You have to make a very clear distinction about who's in control of your working relationships — you or your clients. In this episode I present three points of control the IRS looks at to determine if you're an independent contractor or a misclassified employee.

One aspect of freelancing is that you get to deal with different kinds of taxes. In this episode, which is sparked by a conversation with one of my coaching clients, I discuss income taxes and sales taxes, and your responsibilities as a freelance business owner. Treating your freelancing as a business, and taking care of business, frees you up to focus on your creative work.

As a follow-on to a recent episode, I go in-depth into why and how it's important for both our clients and us to ensure our work isn't used before it's ready. Creative reviews — those work-in-progress presentations with the client — can be opportunities for the client to take hold of the work before contract terms are fulfilled. How can you prevent that from happening? Here's how I do it.

Marketing is a necessary part of any business, but creative freelancers aren't always comfortable doing it. Kick the "I hate marketing" catchphrase to the curb with a practical approach that looks at marketing, branding, and messaging as a way of giving value to your prospective clients.

What do you do when a client wants to treat you as an employee rather than an independent freelance business owner? I answer two questions from freelancers dealing with this conundrum: the first centers on a retainer agreement and the second is dealing with a performance review. I present the case for why you're not an employee, and ways you can respond if you find yourself working with a client who wants control. A third question deals with how to protect your work during a creative review.

One of the things that is often disregarded is the value of creativity, and especially the value of creativity to business. There's the mindset that, "You're doing what you love to do. It's creative, it's fun. You shouldn't expect to be paid much for it because your payment is in the enjoyment of what you do." That's true to some extent — we should enjoy our work. The thing is, though, that we need to look at what we do as having value beyond just the enjoyment. In Episode 101 I state the case that commerce and media need what we creatives do.