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I knew that self employment would be full of highs and lows. I'd been warned as much by freelancers I knew personally or contracted at ESPN. Anytime I asked about their experiences, I got responses that varied from "I love it. I'll never work for anyone again," to "It's tough. Why, are you hiring?"
What I'm saying is I knew what I was getting into.
The biggest reason I waited to make the self-employment-plunge was fear. General fear about my skills, the ability to find work, the stability of getting paid — basically everything that came standard with a salaried position. I had become so used to the predictability of in-house work that I couldn't imagine anything else.
I had heard running a business was hard, but I never really understood what that meant. What was so difficult? Staying on top of your design game? Learning how to manage your time, money and workload? Maybe all of the above? Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner.
Success looks different for everyone, but for me it's being able to significantly contribute to our upcoming mortgage (I dunno if you've heard, but building a house is crazy expensive right now). The most stressful thing for me at the moment is realizing how much our new house is going to cost us and remembering how little I pay myself. Right now, by my own metrics, my business is unsuccessful.
I currently cut myself a check at the end of every quarter, pocketing 50% of my earnings and leaving the rest to taxes and savings. My reasoning is pretty stupid: the checks are bigger and I only have to do math 4x a year. This is something I plan on revisiting after Q2, or as soon as one of you explain to me how to do it better.
In my first quarter, The Hideout financially and qualitatively exceeded my expectations. I wrapped up some freelance work from the end of the previous year and got paid for those projects. I happened to land a couple of excellent branding projects right off the bat, which only seemed to snowball as referrals came in and clients asked for repeat projects.
<aside> 💰 I shared some of the results from that first quarter in a journal entry earlier this year. (Note: that total includes some work from 2020, so I set the bar pretty high.)
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The second quarter has definitely made up for some of my early success, netting me only five new clients compared to the nine I landed in Q1. Here's a quick breakdown of April – June:
I did a lot less Brand Identity work this quarter and wrapped up a couple significant projects that lingered through March. I also started the Apprenticeship Program, which has demanded a lot of my time and attention; however, I wouldn't say it's distracted me from bringing in clients. The biggest reason this number is lower than I had hoped is because of lost opportunities when I was first learning to juggle my workload with extra parenting responsibilities (I told a few people, "No," when I probably could have said, "Yes"). I'm hoping it's the only time I need to learn this lesson.
I've also done fewer Illustrations than Q1, but have been finding ways to incorporate more illustrated work into my brand projects. This doesn't (financially) make up for the clients looking for illustration alone, but it does help scratch that itch for me, personally. I still get regular illustration inquiries, but they're harder to bid for some reason. Maybe it's because the turnaround is faster? I'm still acclimating to being on this side of the illustration business.
The Layout (Production) work continues to come in, with a couple of regular clients who have come to trust me for specific tasks. These are usually for print (packaging), but the occasional digital project (presentation deck) shows up. I typically get paid an hourly rate and enjoy knowing these will net me a specific amount — it takes out some of the guess work in bidding. I've also turned down several layout jobs (or bid them extremely high) simply because I didn't want them.
The newest thing I've been offering is Consulting, which is fun and a bit unexpected. Most of these opportunities are also paid hourly, but I've been doing some Art Direction that I've set up with a fixed-rate should clients need an extra set of eyes with my background in editorial or branding. I'd love to figure out a way to make this a regular source of income, because I really enjoy it and there's very little adjusting to my schedule — just a meeting or some file-sharing.
My current workload has definitely kept me from accepting every inquiry that's come through my inbox. I had a difficult time shipping finished work at the end of Q1, so a lot of my recent work is actually several weeks (or months) old. I've been bidding higher and winning fewer projects. That may change if work dries up next month, but I'm happy with my current range and excited to be saying "no" to work I don't want to do. ☺️
Because of his, I've begun tracking my leads more closely, changing the way I qualify clients and focusing on local ones. I also add a "confidence %" to each lead, so I can better distribute my time and attention to potential new work. For example, I'm currently in the running for my largest bid yet, and would certainly help me hit my target goal for the year; my confidence level has fallen from 75% to 50% as I've learned they're shopping around for comps. Here's hoping they don't resort to Fiverr (which has also happened to me this quarter 😡 ).