Being Freelance

How do you find clients when you hate sales? Steve’s built his business through networking and word of mouth, and despite being an SEO consultant with the skills to drive traffic to a website, he prefers to work with people he’s connected to. Steve chats about managing his workload alongside a chronic illness and two kids under 5, and shares some of the techniques he’s used to find new clients, in...

Finding the right price for your services can be a tough one to crack. We’ve heard about all sorts of pricing models on the podcast before, but Steph’s the first to tell us she charges on a sliding scale. Steph tells her clients: "This is the least amount of money that I can make this project on, and this is the most amount of money that I would charge to do this project. Whatever you can aff...

If you discount the 3 consecutive Saturdays he spent at Waitrose, Tom’s a thoroughbred entrepreneur. He started out knocking on the doors of local businesses at 16 years old, and then went from freelance to founder when he launched Design Cuts - a global marketplace of resources for designers. Tom loves his company, but he’s learnt some hard lessons along the way. He talks openly about his experie...

Here's a bonus episode of the podcast, recorded live with IPSE at a WeWork in Manchester, UK, on 6th March 2019. It features previous guests Kelly Gilmour-Grassam (2016 guest) and Ian Paget (2015). How have they grown their businesses in the years since we last spoke? When we last left her Kelly was hiring her first employee. What happened next?!Ian was working full time at an agency whilst b...

Lucas says that setting up on his own was like discovering himself again. Learning to know himself, what his goals are, and how he wants to live his life. Right now that means trying to stay balanced in the Brazilian countryside, managing the graphic design work he does for clients alongside building his illustration portfolio. And as for the piece of advice he’d give his younger self, it’s one we...

Watching her partner Mark go freelance with great success, Lyndsey decided to join him. “If he can do it, why not me?", she asked herself. Now the founder of a small collective, Nine Dots Creative, Lyndsey’s on the hunt for some big juicy clients. We chat about the “Spark Up” business course Lyndsey took and how it lead her to launch Nine Dots, what life was like freelancing alongside Mark, a...

After leaving college and landing in a job that wasn’t right for him, Jared realised that he didn’t want to spend his whole life working at something he wasn’t passionate about. He launched a blog, began learning Squarespace, and the rest, as they say, is history. He now runs two Squarespace design companies - Brevity and the cleverly-named WebsiteByTonight. From giving away a couple of freebie de...

Jae never imagined she’d pursue a freelance career - or even a creative one, for that matter. After graduating and then missing out on a job she’d set her heart on, Jae began exploring her creative interests and started work on a couple of personal projects. Before long, she’d developed an eye-catching and memorable brand - The INKtrovert, and was winning gigs on the back of putting her work out t...

He started out where many drummers did in his day; responding to magazine adverts for unpaid work with bands. Over the years, Kari’s built a successful career for himself as a freelance musician, finding plenty of ways to diversify his income. He’s learnt so much that he now teaches others how to turn their passion into a profession. So how did he get there, in an industry where it’s notoriously d...

When she found herself knocking back freelance opportunities every week, Cath left her full-time job behind to start a business. Her only regret? Not having done it sooner. Cath’s been lucky in that she’s not had to search for work. Through SEO, website strategy, and word of mouth, she’s moved from one job to the next and worked with an array of international clients. And one of the biggest benefi...

It could be argued that Jan’s doing things differently. He’s not on social media, he’s had long stretches of time out of work, he’s committed to maintaining his work-life balance, and he invests a lot of time into personal development. It all started with an unpaid work placement when he was almost bankrupt. Now, Jan’s built the kind of flexible freelance business that allows him to live life on h...

When Stephanie's employers were refusing projects she'd have loved to take on, she set up her own business on the side and began teaching people about the importance of the work she was doing. Seeing how popular the idea was, Stephanie's employers soon asked her to shut down her business and bring the work in-house. Stephanie said no. She's since had a book published on the sub...

After leaving agency life behind in search of autonomy, Alex built up his freelance web design career around a full-time working from home gig. His goal was to run his own agency, but he was stuck working on client-led projects that he didn't really believe in. Alex knew he could do a better job for his clients if only they'd let him take the driving seat. He re-positioned himself as a m...

After walking away from a diverse career to have a family and live abroad, art graduate Xanthe was reluctant to return. Her children had started school and she was ready to work again, but office life was no longer appealing. She had this passion for taking pictures of her children and documenting her life, and after discovering Flickr and connecting with like-minded people online, she was hooked....

Dave’s always been freelance. First as a musician while he was studying, and more recently as a web designer working mostly with independent business owners. After starting out designing websites for musician friends, he built a solid reputation for himself on Upwork, gaining clients in the UK and overseas. When he began networking with other freelancers online, Dave soon saw the value in communit...

After leaving agency life behind to go freelance, UX designer Mariana found herself yearning for more. Despite still working from home, she now runs her own small agency, Fruto. Missing the benefits of working closely with other people, Mariana wanted to create the perfect environment for great work. A team where the responsibilities are shared, the skills are complementary, and the opportunities...

After falling into freelance life accidentally in the late nineties, Paul Jarvis has helped to shape the way many freelancers work. He started out designing websites for professional athletes, working from his parent’s basement on a self-built computer. And now, 20 years later, Paul is a writer and published author who helps entrepreneurs build businesses that are better, not bigger. Through his w...

From spinning tunes in a gold sequined dress as DJ Super Kat, to organising a national conference for people in the blog and creative industries, Kat Molesworth has a lot going on. She’s a mother of three and a freelance photographer and blogger. She speaks at events, consults with brands, and runs a YouTube channel and podcast. She’s also the founder of Blogtacular - a London-based annual confere...

Digital nomad Kelly landed her first freelance writing gig while she was on a working holiday in New Zealand. Broke and struggling to find work locally, Kelly was introduced to the online world of content mills and freelance market places. After falling in love with a zombie-clad Brit she’d met in a haunted prison (true story!), Canadian-born Kelly found herself living and working in the UK. She s...

After studying Graphic Arts at uni and leaning towards the more experimental forms of art, Martha found herself working in an in-house graphic design role that left little room for creativity. Now two years into her freelance career and living between England and Spain, Martha has built herself a flexible business where she has plenty of variety in her work. And, more than that, Martha is now able...

35 side-hustles into a freelance career, with a book, a podcast, and a growing reputation as a keynote speaker, Jay has many strings to his bow. Watch him give a speech or hear him talk and you’d be forgiven for assuming he has it all figured out. Jay oozes confidence, but he’ll be the first to tell you that he’s making it all up as he goes along. Only this summer, in fact, Jay thought about leavi...

Despite working full-time and freelancing on the side, Caitlin’s made a big impact. From being a finalist in IPSE’s Freelancer of the Year Awards in 2015, to designing her own range of clothing to combat the stigma around mental health issues, Caitlin’s side hustle is impressive. Caitlin’s a self-taught designer who tasted her first slice of the freelance pie aged just 16. We talk about finding cl...

Chris O’Shea first started freelancing straight out of college. After teaching himself web development with a library book, Chris had a phone line installed in his childhood bedroom in the family home. From there, 18-year-old Chris ran his own web design company in what was his first stab at self-employment. Sadly, (or luckily, depending on how you look at it) that one didn’t work out, and so Chri...

Web developer Jason Resnick had a big life goal. When he started a family, he wanted to be home to see his kid’s first steps and hear their first words. To him (and to most of us, I’d imagine) that’s what’s important. Jason wanted to be able to shape everything else around that. Rewind a few years to the late nineties and you’d find him ditching economics class to take casual HTML lessons from a f...

How is it episode 150?! But it is. Thanks so much for listening and sharing! Kirsten set herself a goal. To create a better work/travel balance. To see more of the world without giving up her job. And that's where we find her, on the road - more than happy to NOT set a new goal, but instead enjoy living this one. We chat about collaboration, remote working, making opportunities, digital nomad...