How to be a freelancer

In my agency staff days, now seemingly as far behind me as Uncle Rico’s playing days, a chip on my shoulder slowly formed around who got credit for what. I’d even notice when campaigns for other agencies went live and zero strategists were included in credits.

There’s an understandable reason for this: recency bias. I once worked on a car launch for two years before the campaign work went live. Most campaigns take several months from brief to live date. We’re more likely to think about the people who helped get us into the end zone than those on the field at kickoff. I came to dispense of the advice to other strategists, somewhat jadedly, to never expect a thank you note.

A piece of that chip was lifted off my shoulder when I came across a clip from Ryan Holiday, citing what Marcus Aurelius called the Third Thing. “Stop asking for the third thing. You’ve done something good [the first], and someone benefitted from it [the second]. The third thing is the recognition, the parade, the appreciation, the credit, the payback.”

Freelancers get less public credit than anyone and it’s helpful to think of it almost as a completely different job, liberated from many of the norms of full-time work. As I wrap the year and almost three being a freelancer, I thought I’d share a few things that keep the machine going and keep me sane doing it (credit mostly be damned).

Think about your goals as a freelancer

• Mine = keep working: I may one day re-enter the full-time world, but for now, the goal is to keep finding work with a variety of brands and agencies to create exposure to the unique ways different companies and teams operate.

Balance that against personal and professional goals to determine what kinds of jobs you’ll ideally take

• Feel professionally validated, or do things that are useful to my clients
• → I’m pleasantly surprised when I get some positive feedback in writing. I (and know of some others who do this too) keep a praise folder with screenshots of nice things people say about my work in emails/ texts/ slack/ google slides comments
• → I also love a juicy results article, often a year or so after my work is wrapped.
• Live a consistently active life
• → Surf or snowboard every day
• → Ride my bike 40+ miles a week

Be clear about what you’re offering

• Specific…
• → I try to stick to things I know agencies or brands buy. For me those are: positioning, campaign strategy, comms planning, and org design.
• …yet adaptable
• → If your goal is to keep playing the game, you’re going to have to adapt to its changing rules. The world of advertising looks pretty different today than when I entered in 2012. It will likely change much more with consolidation, media fragmentation, and californication (you never know???).
• From Finite and Infinite Games: “The rules of finite games may not change in the course of play. The rules of infinite games must change.”

Know what you’re getting paid for

• (This is different than what you offer; it’s how you do what you offer)
• To remove risk: for better or worse, it’s easier to blame a contractor if something goes poorly. It’s also just less risky to have a staffer when you really only need someone for 6 weeks.
• To bring a jolt or some magic: you’re unbound to company norms and you probably have an end date. Staffers might be burned out. You get to come in and get weird.
• → “When you demand logic, you pay a hidden price: you destroy magic.“ — Rory Sutherland
• To design for the next thing: the next pitch meeting, brief, comms plan, campaign. Freelancers are masters of refining ingredients or inputs for the next person to make in their own magic.
• → Richard Rummelt describes strategy as design
• → “Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context -a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, an environment in a city plan.” — Eliel Saarinen, via 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School
• To enter and leave at the right time: no host wants guests in their home while they’re cleaning, either before or after the party. We come in with a smile on our face and gift in hand when the cocktails start flowing, and leave before folks start plotting an after party.

Consider where the next job will come from

• Humbly, it’s not where you expect
• Awareness that you’re a freelancer is crucial (made you look 😉)
• Leads might come from:
• → People you barely worked with 12 years ago
• → People you didn’t even think liked you
• → Past clients from your full-time life
• → Past freelance clients
• → Other freelancers who are overbooked (I love doing this when I’m booked and I’m extra grateful to those who do it for me)
• → Someone less senior that you expect (who happens to have a budget for a freelancer)
• So keep track of leads so you can follow up later: name, company, project need, next steps

**I’m available starting in January, but current weather forecasts look like I’ll be spending ton of time in the water and in the mountains before then.

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I write these posts, 3-MINUTE MONDAYS, every other week. My goal with them is to share a snippet of insight into how to do strategy, build teams, and grow. Comment here or message me on LinkedIn if you want to chat. — Ben