Why You Should Not Work as a Freelancer

Many people dream of becoming successful entrepreneurs.
They love the idea of having their own business,
having something that is theirs alone, the possibility of seeing their incomes rise,
to see their business grow and become a reference point.

All this are valid dreams but to achieve them, you must be more than a dreamer.
Not everyone has a personality that suits this kind of profession.
Many people start a business and after a few months they are required to terminate activity.
They come back to try again, and the result remains: give up after a few months.

The Internet facilitates these kinds of situations.
The investment is reduced, leading many (pseudo) entrepreneurs to try to work from home.
The most visible are the blogs.
There are a handful of blogs on Google where we can see that the content was written several years ago and has not been continued.

WHERE WILL I BE WRONG?
Failure can often be a path to success.
There are several cases of entrepreneurs who have failed at the first attempt, and many more,
but managed to take positive lessons of previous mistakes, pick himselfs up and create a successful business.
If you already have attempted, if it did not work and it is what you really want, don’t give up.

There are very common mistakes that people make when creating a business.
Some are linked to traits of their personality.
You can make an analysis of their characteristics and try to understand where you are wrong.

The blame is often not of the product or the market. It’s yours.

The truth is that successful people have things in common.
Whatever is your routine, the way of being or the way of thinking.

LACK OF OWN INITIATIVE
In a normal work, for more initiative that you have, you always have the boss approval and telling you what to do, when to do it.
This filter between the idea and moving to practice is one factor that distinguishes successful people from those who fail.
People like Bill Gates have several business ideas.
But those are for practice, are only the ones they know that can have a strong impact on the public.
As a freelancer or entrepreneur you must not only have the initiative,
but also the ability to assess the feasibility of your idea.
Do people need the product you want to create?
How to monetize the product?
How do you make the product grow?
These are questions that must be analyzed.
Be proactive, while you filter what is feasible or not.

DIFFICULTY IN DEALING WITH LONELINESS
Having your best friend at work is normal.
Many friendships emerge from hours spent in the office.
There are people who can only meet other people in labor periods.

Working as a freelancer can be quite tricky for anyone who has that kind of personality.
Loneliness and freelancer are almost synonymous.
There are few cases where you find another freelancer and can share a desktop with him.
Over time, you can build a team to help and mingle with you.
However, the most likely it is that you have to deal with loneliness.

How do freelancers mingle?
The coworking spaces have been evolving.
Increasingly there are freelancers looking for these spaces, to fill this lack of social activity.
Social networks have also played a key role in recent years.
It helps to relieve the lack of conversation with someone on a day-to-day.

LACK OF PRODUCTIVITY
Any freelancer can always try to be more productive.
Making tasks more quickly requires more focusing, it helps to not feel so isolated.
If you do the tasks within the proposed time,
you will have more free time at the end of the day to hang out with friends, go out to take a coffee or to play sports.
Or use this free time for their personal projects.

SOUND MIND BODY
Too many hours of work can make you ill.
It is for the entrepreneur to find ways to combat this problem, trying to keep healthy.
The practice of sport is an important point.
You should try your best to find time for sports.
This will help you be more productive.

UNCRITICAL
Generally, a successful person is not pleased by what he sees for the first time.
There is always a detail that can be improved or a comma that remained to place in a text.
As a freelancer, the requirement to make your work should always be maximum.
Confining only to fulfill the tasks is the first step towards failure.
Do not be content to do the basics. Try to always be much better than your competitors.

In the Steve Jobs’ book, they make reference to one of those situations.
To finish the Apple II, the Apple’s ex-CEO needed a beige shade to put on the enclosure of the computer.
The firm which normally works with Apple, has presented two thousand shades of beige.
Between this big number of shades, Jobs didn’t like any.
This is an example of the exigence of a successeful person..

It does not mean that you have to be so extravagant while making decisions,
you must be careful enough to not be permissive, it may slow your work and end with the productivity.

MONEY IS YOUR ONLY MOTIVATION
We all think about increasing our profits when we create our own business.
However, this must not be the only, either the most important motivation that will take you to risk

Before that, you must have other motivations.
Pleasure for what you are doing
Desire to stand out in the market
Please the clients
Create a quality product
Among others
These are just few motivations that must be before the profitability of any work.

One mistake that usually appears with this kind of motivation is to think that money can arise quickly.
Any successful freelancer had worked very hard to get where he is.
He had promoted his work, met the deadlines with the costumers and improved his knowledge.
These are habits that take years to achive.

LACK OF ORGANIZATION
The organization is fundamental to any worker.
Even those who sweeps the streets, need to know what they are doing and where to go.
But to those that have their own business, the organization becomes a crucial factor.
When there is no time to stand up or lie down,
becomes too easy to succumb to the temptation to stay a little longer in bed or going out with friends.
If you think a freelancer only works when it wants, it is best to give up the idea to start this kind of business.

Experienced professionals know that this lifestyle can often be more demanding than a nine to five job.

There are several issues that dictate your organization.
Getting up early even without an entry time?
Meet deadlines with regularly?
Enjoy working in advance or you are those who only produces when under pressure?
Able to organize your day and accomplish what you planned?
Can you refuse an invitation to drink coffee?
Is your office organized?
Can you distinguish the fun from job when in the internet?

When you begin to manage your own day, you will see the difficulties that is to be your own boss.

BAD MANAGEMENT OF PERSONAL FINANCE
The personal finance is one of the points where you should be more careful.
This is because an independent worker never has a fixed salary.
For a few months you have several clients and can make good money,
while in other months, you have no clients at all.
A good financial management is essential, specially in the initial stage having a small client wallet.

LITTLE CAPACITY FOR WORKING OVERTIME
Having the ability to control our working time is a huge advantage.
There is nothing more annoying than having to get those two extra hours at work.
As a freelancer, when the work is completed, you supposedly can rest.
However, the opposite also happens, the work is often such that you need to do overtime.
Be able to do these tasks, even against your will, is not easy.
It is very common in the world of freelancing.

LACK OF WILL TO LEARN
A freelancer needs to be a little bit of everything:
householder, finance manager, marketeer, blogger, among other things.
It is this need to learn a little of everything that makes the profession of freelance something so motivating.
It is necessary to constantly improve your knowledge.
Your customers are demanding, always want to receive the latest news, cutting-edge technology.
After the emergence of social networks and smartphones, it has become even more important.
It is necessary to understand how they work, adapt to change in order to promote your work in an effective manner.
Thus, it is necessary to have the will to always learn more.
It is not enough just to have a course or a degree and think you know all about the area.
Much of the knowledge comes after that.
From the books you read, the lectures which you assist or blogs you follow.
And as a freelancer, your life will always be like that.
A constant dissatisfaction and a desire to always want to know a little more about the various areas.
To evolve as a person and professional.

DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SELL THE PRODUCT
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, a freelancer needs to be a bit of everything
and a very important thing is knowing how to communicate with customers.
You have to believe in the product and sell it.
It is not enough creating a good product.
Take the example of Apple. Their marketing campaign is so strong that it makes people impulsively bought their products.
The power of marketing in your business is incredible. It is one of your greatest tools.

HAVE DIFFICULTY GETTING MOTIVATION
Working with your own business is not easy.
In addition to the time needed to get an idea to become profitable, it may have high and low points.
It is important to realize that this is part of your day to day.
There are times when you have more clients, while others you don’t have clients.
It is determining to maintain your motivation to work in this period.
It is necessary to react and not get carried away with the flow.
We can use the example of Mourinho, the best coach in the world.
I am sure he has a great ability to self motivate.

WITHOUT AN IDEA OF WHAT YOU WANT TO DO
The money or the freedom of time, are all arguments that lead us to start a career as a freelancer.
However, there are questions that remain unanswered:
What am I really going to do? What it means to be a freelancer?
You need to decide what you really want.
All options are valid as long as you find a justification for them.
You can always do a SWOT analysis.
It helps to give a concrete notion of what you can do and what needs to improve.
Starting just because you are not satisfied with your current employment decreases dramatically the chances to be successful.

To work as a freelancer, it is important to be aware of all these points.
There are examples of disorganized people that were able to succeed at the same time.
However, many of them compensate their lack of rigor with a knack for business.
Even if you commit some of the errors that were referred, you still have the possibility to assert itself in the market.

It is an important step to start a new lifestyle as being a freelancer.
Should be given carefully and thoughtfully.
It can lead to a negative phase in your life.

You thought of all these issues before becoming a freelancer?
There are some of these points that can improve?
What points you think are missing?

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2 Comments

  • Filipe Xavier
    26 de Abril de 2012 at 23:29 

    Great post Joel, it’s comforting to know that many of the situations you’ve brought up here are common. I agree with you in every point so there’s not much to add, really. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this subject. Good luck!

    • admin
      27 de Abril de 2012 at 17:52 

      Thanks. I’m glad to know you like it.
      Hope you subscribe the RSS Feed and keep following the blog.
      I will wait to see your portfolio online!
      Good luck,
      Joel Rocha

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