2009 Freelance Business Recap and Lessons Learned
It’s that time of the year – the end – when we look back and look ahead. 2009 has been quite a year of transition for me personally and professionally, so I’d like to take a moment to recap.
Earlier this year, I posted about doing a big-picture assessment of my of my freelance web design business. The post received quite a bit of traffic from Google (mostly from mis-spellings of the apparently popular search term “big assess”, but that’s another story). More importantly, it served as a declaration of self-motivation, mostly stemming from my desire to learn more about running a small business and taking action on the things I learned.
Here are the highlights:
Books and research materials
The Four Hour Workweek, by Tim Ferris – Probably my favorite read of this past year. I wrote about my takeaway points in this blog post. Not everything applied to my situation, but it definitely opened my eyes to new ways of managing time, doing business, and exploring the freelance lifestyle.
Two Books from Seth Godin: Purple Cow and Tribes – Both highly recommended. I’ve been following Seth Godin’s blog for quite a while, but it wasn’t until this year that I picked up his books. Godin provides amazing insight into marketing and big-picture philosophy as we navigate today’s changing world of media. His writing style is quick and gets strait to the point, and those points tend to be value-packed pieces of information. Purple Cow will teach you the importance of being remarkable. Tribes is not only about building a following, but building a movement.
The Sitepoint Web Design Business Kit – A little pricey, but definitely money well-spent. Sure, most of it were things I probably could have taught myself or learned through various other outlets. But having all of this information packed together in one place made it an excellent resource. More importantly, it provided lots of food for thought. I dedicated a few hours each week for about two months to reading chapters, then writing and reflecting on ideas that could work for my business. I didn’t follow all of the instructions to a tee, but this kit helped me carve out a game plan that worked for my specific situation.
Favorite RSS feeds from 2009 - As of today, I have 96 subscriptions in my Google Reader. Believe it or not, that’s after trimming it down some. Here are a few of my favorites from this past year:
- The Netsetter – fantastic blog from Collis Ta’eed, founder of Envato.
- Adii Rockstar – Insightful and interesting posts from Adii, founder of WooThemes.
- Gary Vaynerchuck – How can you not love his powerhouse video blog (the business one, not the wine one)?
- WordPress Tavern – Not only a great hangout/forum for WordPress, but it has become the go-to resource for WordPress news. Great podcast.
- Unmatched Style – This has become my first go-to resource (among others) for web design inspiration.
- Signal vs. Noise – Great business blog and new podcast from the guys behind 37 Signals.
Blogging
2009 was the year I made a full-on commitment to blogging- in multiple places. Through posting to my various blogs and guest blogging on others, I learned quite a bit about this great medium. Here are the highlights / lessons learned from my year of blogging and Tweeting:
- Don’t blog with hopes of monetizing your content (as I tried to do with servethesong.net). Blogging should be a way to support your other business – whatever that business is. Don’t make the blog itself the business because the chances of success are too slim.
- I’m happy to say that roughly 25% of my web design business came as a direct result of my blogs and tweets- either through blog comments, emails from readers, or @replies.
- Simplicity is key. Get right to the point. Seth Godin’s blogging style is the perfect example of this, and something I’m striving to acheive in my own web writing (obviously not in this already too-long blog post).
- SEO – While I don’t call myself an SEO expert or specialist, blogging has forced me to learn a lot about SEO, and developing websites and WordPress with SEO in mind.
Client Work
The biggest lesson learned in terms of client work is this: Keep it flowing, but not at the expense of a stress-free workload.
Earlier this year, I posted about dealing with work-overload and managing stress. I had reached a point where business-wise I was doing well, but personally I wasn’t. I was making a decent income with little or no down-times, but I was working crazy hours, dealing with crazy clients, and it resulted in high levels of stress, which affected my relationships and overall enjoyment of my chosen career path.
So now, I’m happy to say that I’ve found a good balance. After two years of being in business, I’m no longer worried about finding work for next month and the month after. I can (cautiously) assume the work will be there because I’ve built a reputation for myself as a reliable and recommendable web designer. I’ve learned to be selective when taking on client work, choosing only the projects that meet these requirements:
- The client must be respectful and professional.
- The project budget must make it worth my time.
- The project should bring in other benefits besides a paycheck: Opportunity to learn a new skill, a challenging design problem, an opportunity to expand my portfolio, etc.
Other Developments
There are two other major highlights from 2009 I’d like to mention:
I moved apartments and workspace – Thanks to a successful year of client work, I managed to upgrade my living and working space. See a pic of my workspace here and checkout some pics from my new rooftop here.
Began planning and building ThemeJam – My WordPress Themes company. It’s set to launch in early 2010, but I’ve been hard at work planning and prepping over the last few months. Much more to come on this topic in 2010.
Over to you!
I’m always interested to hear from you via the comments or on Twitter. What did you learn during the past year about yourself, your business, or the web in general? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or on Twitter.
Here’s to a successful year ahead!
In the year 2009 freelance jobs had gain more popularity, I think one of the reason for this popularity is several people loss their jobs and found freelancing as a new way to ear money.