Following on from last week’s FreelanceUK article on how to find more clients in a recession, I thought it might be a good idea to pool resources on what else we can do, as freelancers, to survive the recession and stay solvent and, just as importantly, sane.
When all you read and hear about is doom and gloom, it’s not always easy to avoid sitting in your home office and dissolving into a blubbering wreck. It’s true that one of the worst things about the whole sorry situation (you know, the recession thing) is feeling so powerless in the face of something that’s fairly difficult to actually understand, let alone do anything about. Well, we might not be able to solve the global financial crisis, but there are definitely steps we can all take to protect ourselves as much as possible, while somebody else with a bit more clout (hopefully) works something out.
If I do get sucked into the recession black hole, I want to be able to say that I did everything to avoid it. Here’s what I’ll be doing to claw my way through. I’d love to hear your survival strategies as well.
Saving: While I haven’t resorted to re-using teabags just yet, I am getting well acquainted with some frugal lentil recipes in a bid to save as much money as possible. At a time when they’re needed most, my emergency reserves became a bit depleted recently due to non-work circumstances so now I’m working as hard as possible to build them back up again in case of quiet periods. Savings are much better than Horlicks for helping you sleep at night too when you’re a freelancer. So for now financial frippery is out and libraries, cooking at home and rented dvds are in.
Spreading the risk: I’m more aware than ever at the moment of the need to avoid relying on too small a pool of clients. I don’t want to be in a situation where if one client decides to bring work in-house or runs into cash-flow problems, I am immediately plunged into dire straits, especially when new work might be thinner on the ground than before. It can be tricky balancing act, though, to not take on too much good work from one client when it’s being offered in order to spread the load and risk. My strategy? At the moment I just take it all and stay up late a lot!
Diversifying: Again, there is a fine balancing act between offering more services so that you can potentially get more clients and spreading yourself too thinly and diluting your services. Diversifying can work though and not many people can afford to stay in their comfort zones at the moment. For example, my social networking experimentation has since led to me helping a company out with this kind of work on an ongoing basis and really developing a new skill – now I can offer a service I wouldn’t have considered before, whilst still using my writing skills. I’ve heard of other writers taking design and web courses to offer these related skills too. I’m not very techy so will be avoiding these areas but I might look into services such as more blogging and virtual secretarial work. Someone has even suggested making up greetings card ditties, which sounds like it could be fun…
Staying positive: Whilst I don’t want to be blindly optimistic and naïve about the prospect of unemployment and destitution, I do think there’s a lot to be said for staying positive. If I don’t make a conscious effort to do so, I’ll probably end up panicking so much about the future I’ll forget that at the moment I am staying afloat and that is the main thing. Budgets are drying up or getting tighter and some businesses are keeping work in-house; some aren’t though and there is still definitely work that needs doing, even if you have to look harder and think more broadly to find it.
I stayed in a B&B recently (er…not really in keeping with my point about being frugal is it?) and the owner told me that business was very slow due to the big bad R word, despite her being in a top tourist spot. I felt quite gloomy for her as she ran such a lovely place. She wouldn’t have a bit of it though - “I’m quite enjoying the challenge if I’m honest”, she said and told me excitedly about her new marketing initiatives. I think she has the right attitude. Giving up freelancing is not something I really want to consider in the near future if at all possible so I am trying to think with blinkers on: it’s not a matter of “if” freelancing can work for me during a recession, just how.
What are you doing? I’d be interested to know – are you considering lower paid work? Have you freelanced during a recession before? How are you diversifying?
May 20, 2009
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