Freelance Heroes

@Holly - agree completely.

As ones business grows, one needs to find different "creative" areas to be involved with!

You are completely right though, outsourcing "creativity" and moving towards "editorial control" is (I'm afraid...), perhaps an inevitability.

Bruce

Thta bit scares me

Yes, I'm scared too... though it seems to be truth.

I think that the business part of it is as creative as the "creative" part, as you need to create solutions to get paid at the end...

I think that a freelance ID should be a bit of everything -that's why it's so difficult. I think that if someone is totally business oriented, then why not setting a huge business, a company, with professionals, etc.? 

In fact, if you think about it thoroughly, a creative mind doesn't suit anywhere... or at least, no in anything related to money, business or anything practical.

I think it all depends on what you mean by "creative".

You can be creative in sales, propositions, vision, invoices (scrub that....I did not mean it....really..... ), design, sales process, presenting to people, advising people, helping people, giving to people, and instructional design.

I happen to love business, all areas of it, and I think it is certainly possible to crossover into a variety of areas. I do not just like creating eLearning, but everything that surrounds that process.

If you WANT to stay just "creative", there are a number of ways - subcontracting to others, or crowdsourcing, it is possible, in fact - most things are.

Bruce

What Bruce said.

If you truly love being creative in everything you do, you can run just about every aspect of your business creatively. Even invoicing

There's a lot to running a business. Even all the front-end studying I did there were still many things I learned along the way. So here's the big secret - you head will never be in the same place as your heart. But you can be prepared (see that key word there..."prepared").

Making the leap is scary. No doubt. I lost 15 ibs. the first month because I kept hearing this voice, "You idiot! You just walked away from 15 years vested in a company you could have worked the rest of your life, great salary, benefits, and perks."  All while that voice was haunting me, my other voice was calm saying, "Relax. You've worked hard the last two years to get here. You're ready and prepared. Now just work the plan."

How to prepare for that big day? Plan now. My strategy was not to pick a 'day to quit' rather a 'amount of money set aside." So I wrote in big Sharpie on a piece of paper and taped it to my wall, "Dollars before Day." Meaning, I calculated how much money I would need to sustain my families standard of living for 90 days using my current salary at the time. There's a lot of math involved because you have to figure taxes, insurances, etc. Think of it as giving yourself a 90 severance package. No matter what clients/projects you have the day you do leave, you know that for the next 90 days you'll be fine.

Next plan is work toward that goal. Here's the bombshell - it may take you 2 years working 20 hours a week as a freelancer to put generate that amount. May be sooner or longer depending on your current salary and standard of living. The point is to work toward that goal. I did just that - committed to 20 hours a week like it was a part-time job. 3-4 hours every night and some on the weekends. By working a solid plan and putting every dime you make either in a separate account or reinvest (website, software, hardware, travel to conference, marketing, etc.) you'll get there.

...and that my friend is why you will be a success.

There are too many people (IMHO) setting themselves up as IDs who think there's a huge market they can plunder.

It IS hard work, but not only does fortune favour the brave, it also smiles on those who plan realistically, work their wotsits off, and learn their craft. Sometimes you have to work VERY hard to be lucky

Bruce

Good points, Bruce.

I got into e-learning for all the creative avenues if affords. As you become successful, one does have to think of creativity in a broader way. Creating your own business is a creative act. Figuring out the performance issues your client struggles with is a creative act. Figuring out how to make a good chunk of cash while caring for your two-year-old demands creativity.

Still, it ain't sittin' in a coffeeshop writin' poetry...

Oh, by the way, if anyone has a cool, creative invoice, please share it. Kevin, you've got me thinking.

@Bruce - what's a "wotsit" ?

Wotsits are cheesy corn based snack, but I dont think that is what he meant

Don't be scared! Just think about who you are selling to and narrow it. One of the challenges we have is that we don't often want to limit ourselves, so we end up trying to sell work to anyone. It's overwhelming, and it's hit and miss. 

Instead, focus your efforts. Imagine if you were selling e-learning to a particular industry, say retail financial services. You start by building relationships with those businesses, then when you feel you've got a good enough foothold, you extend to a similar industry: such as mortgage brokers, then insurance, then...

Or if you want to stick to sub-contracting so you can spend more time on creative - you need to think about two things (at least): 

1. what can I do that no one else is good at - maybe you are really good at constructing quizzes

2. who can I partner with that would sell my services on my behalf - who would need great quizzes (what industries/businesses) and do I know how they are getting their quizzes today? Can I find out if they outsource and to who...

The thing is, being a freelancer isn't easy, it takes hard work and sometimes a bit of luck and yes creativity. I happen to be extremely creative, but I'm not really artistic. My clients think that I come up with really good ways to solve their problems. 

Here's a recent example: I worked with a client to develop a blended course. Their business was evolving as we were creating the course. Now they are faced with an additional distribution model for their course, so I met with them to talk about how we could repurpose the existing materials. The course now needs to be made into a set of paper materials for a coach/coachee to review depending on their own circumstances. I said "how do you feel about adding a small diagnostic element here - something simple that posed questions...". It isn't really ground-breaking or even technical, but to the client it IS creative.

I hope that's more helpful. I don't want to scare people. 

Holly

Bruce

PS - Phil, I just hyphenated "corn-based" for you

Bruce - if I could make money at all the non-billable hours I've invested, I could have retired the day I started freelancing! Maybe I'm too geeky but I bake in a couple hours a day toward my business that are non-billable - sketching out new ideas, learning new software or programming language, testing new ideas, etc.

Phil - so Bruce sees is backside as cheesy corn?

Daniel - Here's a invoice I used last year. Moving to cloud-based service this year. Basic invoice snazzed up just a bit.

"Backside" was not the particular anatomical reference I was making there..........

Bruce

Ah yes, the misinterpretation of the pond between us. "Work your wotsit off." as opposed to "Work you wotsits off." Kinda funny actually.  

Thanks for the hyphenation that is 36 you have caught for me today.

Thanks Kevin that is a vision i will will need to drink loads to remove

You guys over there only have one each?

Well - that's a new piece of information......

Bruce

PS - wouldn't it be ironic, after all his mastery of, and contribution to Articulate if Phil's big "6K post" was on this subject... 

The nice thing about this forum is that no-one will ever know what my 6,000 post was on

Unless of course you were that at the time

I also notice that it is not counting correctly, so I may hit 6000 and never know about it

Only 16 to go. Surely we can drag this out long enough to hit that mark. 

I could do it one word at a time