I genuinely wasn't expecting to be back so soon when I decided that it was time for me to enter another season of keeping a low profile. Let's just say something unexpected happened yesterday, so it seemed like the right timing for an update. After this post, I will resume my period of silence.
Finally Becoming All That I'm Meant to Be
I had a job interview yesterday morning, and almost immediately after it, I was offered the position with a salary that felt almost unattainable. Notice that I didn't say that it was impossible. Ever since the recent shifts in the industry, some companies have become more willing to pay better to attract the best of the best within each field of hire. That's the trade-off for downsizing the size of their development teams. I want to point out that I genuinely empathize with those who may have been let go to make way/space within the company to bring on someone like me. I am, however, deeply grateful and appreciative that I have been given this opportunity to shine (perhaps the way I was meant to shine as a FED Specialist).
Recognizing My Freelance Efforts & Achievements
I have been freelancing for much longer than my official professional career. Unofficially, I started freelancing a few years before I entered the workplace. But if I want to be more official, I've been freelancing for 19 years and 4 months. My experience as a freelancer also enabled me to gain that value-adding advantage over other potential candidates. This is also officially the second time in my career where the hiring company wasn't even looking at anyone else. To them (in their own words), I had been uniquely made for the role that they were looking to fill.
Renewed Passion & Mission to Continue Freelancing
After this most recent interaction, it has reignited that flame (which, if I'm being honest, has been flaming out in recent years) inside of me. When I first officially began freelancing back in 2006, I did it because it was the only way I could pursue and practice what I believed in—Agile, UX, and Front-end Dev. I've always told myself that if I could do what I believe in as part of an official job, maybe I wouldn't have to freelance anymore.
After nearly twenty years of freelancing, I think it is too valuable to give up. In fact, after securing my new career opportunity, I will make a conscious and serious effort to make my freelance services more official (e.g., registering as a business entity, investing funds into building and maintaining my next featured professional website).
Sharing What Worked for Me (as an Experienced Freelancer)
As I look ahead to what my future might hold for me, I want to celebrate this moment in my journey by sharing with the rest of this community FIVE things that I believe you can start doing today to help you remain valuable as a freelancer.
Taking on Overseas Clients—I must admit it: My first major breakthrough as a freelancer was when I began looking overseas. I'm currently based in Singapore, but I have also worked with clients from places like HK, Switzerland, the UK, Australia, and the US.
Take on a Coordinator/Facilitator role—One of the most important factors that influenced my early breakthroughs as a freelancer was when I started to offer my services as a coordinator. Rather than acting as an independent developer/consultant, I wanted to have a more collaborative element to what I can provide/offer. Over time, it became something that my clients appreciated most. By playing a more coordinating role, I helped my client to free up their time and energy to focus on more critical tasks in their day-to-day operations.
Don't Stop Taking on Smaller Gigs—This might sound redundant to mention, but I am still going to put it here because I think it is a common mistake for more experienced freelancers to believe that just because they are charging more, such gigs are no longer worth their time. That is such a negative way to look at these smaller opportunities. In my experience, even though these are smaller gigs (maybe they even offer less), they can sometimes lead to the next major gig. I've experienced a few times where a smaller gig led to something significant later. When I take on smaller gigs, I still give it my best effort as I would to a major gig. I always believed that our effort and excellence in what we do speak a lot about who we are, no matter the size of the gig. I would put in the same level of excellence for a $3000 gig as for a $30,000 gig.
What Can You Offer That is Value-Adding?—The next step to ensuring that you continue to remain valuable to your target clients is by ensuring that you can bring something extra to the table. No, this doesn't mean you should offer something else for free. I still charge for it. But from the client's perspective, it is always more valuable for them to have that something extra included. For example, when I work with a client, I often include elements of Agile UX, UX prototyping & the use of Telerik's products on top of my development services.
Master the Art of Project Handovers—As a final tip, I want to talk about something that is often overlooked when developers provide freelancing services. I have made my fair share of mistakes/failures in this area when I first started freelancing too. It took me a while to realise that I needed to put considerable effort into this area if I wanted my clients to walk away feeling like they know what they needed to do next. If my client was an individual, I would often make sure that I have at least 1-2 sit-downs with them to explain in detail everything that I've done, and also run-through the things they need to know should they decide that they want to pass the work off to someone else for the next step. If I'm working with a team, I would allocate sessions to sit down with the team to explain everything I have done. Maybe even include some mentoring and training sessions to ensure I don't just collect the final payment and say bye-bye.
Closing Thoughts
Well, those are the FIVE things that have worked really well for me. As I continue to offer my freelance consulting/development services to future clients, I will continue to apply those same practices to what I do.
Disclaimer: I want to also acknowledge that your circumstances and situation might differ from mine, and so some of the above-mentioned practices may or may not work best for you under those circumstances. My hope is that by sharing what has worked best for me, some of those tips might benefit some of you as well.
