How to Be A Freelance Site Designer:
It sounds so amazing: working for yourself, choosing your own hours, all while doing something you excel at: graphic design. Maybe your friends think you have a knack for designing attractive and effective fliers and business cards, or maybe you are already working for a graphic design company and want to branch out on your own to pursue ideas you've had that have been nixed by management in the past. It sounds lucrative: pursuing your passions and ideas for profit! What could be better?
But is it all it's cracked up to be? More importantly, do you have what it takes to be in business for yourself? Believe it or not, knowing your way around a graphic design program and possessing amazing design talent to create someone's cheap hosting website is a small portion of what you need in order to succeed.
Freelance Site Designer: Questions To Ask Yourself
First and foremost, determine whether or not you are the type of person who can work well alone, without direction from others, or consequences when the deadline is not met. This is harder than you would think, especially if your office is in your home! Can you ignore the laundry piles and dirty dishes? Can you avoid excessive breaks?
Also, are you willing to get out there and advertise? Can you do all of your own accounting and bookkeeping? Will these mundane tasks bore you, and will you end up putting them off? Because you can't.
Here are some things to think about prior to jumping into the freelance designer world. Consider it a reality check of sorts, and think it through completely before you make your decision.
Freelance Site Designer: Not Always Designing
That's right, you aren't always doing something you love. To start, you need to hit the streets and drum up clients! Marketing is a big step in the infancy of your business. Once you've attracted those clients, you need to keep them, and that's hard work too! Don't forget bookkeeping, which you'll probably start out doing all by yourself, as well as dealing with all of the phone calls, answering emails, mailing out materials, handling purchasing, and advertising. All of these tasks require more time than you would think! Not many freelancers are lucky enough to hire a team to deal with these tasks right off the bat.
Freelance Site Designer: You Won't Make Money Right Away
The paychecks you get from your first clients don't really add up to profit. You need to pay for equipment, materials, and other operating expenses, as well as keeping some set aside for taxes. Most frreelancers start out charging either what they made for the company they worked for previously, or a little bit more. This doesn't leave a lot for their own pockets. It's important you are confident with your skills as a designer so that you can charge what you are truly worth. This is the only way to make money for yourself.
Freelance Site Designer: Time Off On Your Terms? Think Again.
While freelancing does allow you to set your own schedule, you actually do more work than if you were working for someone else. You cannot assume that you'll be able to take off whenever you feel like it, work limited hours in a week, or sleep in every day. You need to treat it just like you would a job. Your hours need to be convenient for your clients, which may mean 8am phone calls or meetings. While there is flexibility, there is no free pass to take off to the beach whenever you feel like it. Your business will not succeed if you think this way.
While it is a lot of work, it is certainly worthwhile. If you are talented at designing cheap hosting websites, it is worth thinking about! If you aren't great at meeting deadlines on your own or putting in the effort to making your business successful, you should probably reconsider!
Are you a successful freelancer? Have any tips? Share them below!
