Freelance Survival Skills

Ian Paget: Graphic designers, whatever level they're at, a lot of people tend to see going freelance or becoming their own independent graphic designer is almost like the pinnacle or the peak of success. And I see so many people aiming for this, but you've recently wrote a book called Survival Skills for Freelancers, but I think, rather than just diving into how people can do that, I think we should have a bit of a reality check. Would you mind sharing a bit from your perspective of what the reality is of freelancing?

Sarah Townsend: Yeah, absolutely. It's one of those things that is a real issue to trip people up, I think. I think that we don't often talk about the reality. We all have this really clear grasp of what we expect freelance life to be like, and we're attracted to freelancing because we have the special skill. And in the case of your audience, that's graphic design. And we want to share that skill with the world, preferably on our own terms. So we're attracted by the freedom and the flexibility of freelance life. And the idea that we get to make good money, preferably, from doing the thing we love, working where we like, when we like and how we like, but in reality... So last year, the start of last year, there were 2 million freelancers in the UK alone and of the 5 million self-employed businesses in the UK, 20% of those businesses don't actually make it through the first year of trading.

And 60% of those don't make it through five years. So there's obviously something catching people out, the expectation and the reality just don't quite match up. So one of the things that I like to share from my own experience is that what caught me off guard when I first went freelance was really just the sheer volume of the business end of freelance life, because I guess I thought that I was going to be making a living from doing the thing that I loved, which editing and proofreading at the time, and then since then copywriting. I'd get to the end of the week and I'd feel exhausted by looking back over just how much time I had spent doing admin, finding clients, marketing, sales, meetings, just doing invoicing, proposal documents and chasing payments, doing my own accounts and all this kind of thing.

And bearing in mind that this was 21 years ago when I first got started, there was no social media back then. So on top of all that, all those things that we find ourselves having to do, we've now got that kind of ongoing feeling that we need to be everywhere all of the time on social media. And that's actually a myth in itself and I've written a blog post about that. And I cover that in the book, but it's a lot of pressure. And we can only do so much and the quicker we can learn the skills and the kind of coping strategies, which is why my book is called Survival Skills, the quicker we can become successful as freelancers, without worrying too much about the kind of the highs and lows and the fluctuations, the uncertainty and the unpredictability of work, because we've got those coping strategies. We know how to deal with those highs and lows.

Ian Paget: Oh, wow. I think we definitely need to go into a few of those, but I know from my own experience, so I worked for an agency for a long time and I built what now is Logo Geek on the side of that job. And I went full-time with it around a year ago, but I actually went part-time with it maybe about three years ago. And for the first few months, I actually didn't particularly like it. I found it quite stressful because it's all on you. When you work for a company, you can basically sit down, work on graphic design, everyone tells you what you need to do, and you just sit there and you work on your skills. So I personally feel that if you are the type of person that just wants to get really good at what you do...

So in this case, graphic design, working for a company is an ideal situation, because you're basically paid to sit there to focus on that skill and you can really specialise in that. But when you do take that leap and when you do work for yourself, as you mentioned, you don't sit there all day doing the thing that you love, that actually becomes a relatively small percentage. You end up working on marketing, admin, administration, sales, telephone calls. It's a whole different beast of... Well, I mean a lot of people, I don't feel that they expect that. And I think that's why so many people fail in that first year for that reason.

Sarah Townsend: Exactly.

Ian Paget: So some of these survival skills, something I've noted down in my notes is how do you know if you got what it takes to do freelance? Because I mean, it's something that a lot of people aspire to do, but how do you know if it's right for you?

Sarah Townsend: Yeah. Well, I actually think what you've just said about being the type of person who just actually wants to do graphic design day in, day out and get paid for it, your advice about staying in an employed role is pretty sound. I think we don't anticipate the sheer amount of being a business owner that is involved in being a successful freelancer. I think anybody can freelance ultimately, but actually making a good, successful living from it, earning good money from it and just getting better and better, spreading the word, building a reputation, it all involves putting yourself out there. And there are a lot of people, particularly in the creative industries, they would identify as being introverted. And there is a lot of going out there and, "Hey, this is me," and not just kind of going, "Oh, let me design your logo for you." But it's really important to just build your network and to rely on the communities that exist around.

So for example, your Facebook group is the perfect example of this. You should join a group like this with the intention of learning and supporting others and building your network and building your community and having this amazing group of people that you can lean on when you need advice, if you're struggling or you've got a client who you're finding difficult to manage. Or you've got a project that's a little bit too challenging and you need a bit of collaboration and help, but the people who go into these groups with the intention of, "I'm going to find new clients." Those quickly kind of come up short, I think, because people see through that. So you do have to be prepared to kind of give of yourself. And that's not a comfortable situation for everybody naturally. I think I've learned to be extrovert over the years because the whole time I was at school, I was really shy.

Every parent's evening, my parents would be told, "Oh, she's very quiet in class," but over the years, I've just become more confident, the fake it till you make it thing. And I think now, I genuinely have a curiosity about the world around me, but really about other people and about other people's businesses. And that really stands you in good stead as a freelancer, because you have to be open to the fact that you never know who the people you meet are connected to and what they can bring to your career. We all get good at defining our customer avatars, don't we? I think that's something that everybody talks about, "Oh, you need to know your audience inside out, create this profile of what this person looks like." And actually by doing that, we sometimes go into a situation where we'll judge people a little bit too quickly.

So rather than going, "Okay. So I'm having a conversation with somebody. I don't really think that they've got anything to offer me," but actually you don't know what their partner does. You don't know what their family do. You don't know who their best friend is, their best friend might be a CEO of your dream business. You just don't know. So I think curiosity is something that really stands you in good stead. Confidence is very important, but I think really that understanding that you have to become a business owner, it's not just getting paid for that thing that you love doing day in, day out. There's so much more to it than that.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I would totally agree with that. And I think what you mentioned then about not judging people and kind of getting to know everyone, because you never know what might come of it. I did an interview with Michael Janda and people in the creative industry would know how successful he's been. And in that interview with him, he told me about when he worked for this company, I think it was an intern or something that came in, and a lot of CEOs kind of... I mean, not all CEOs do this, but they don't prioritise that person because it's just someone just starting out. And they're not going to be there full-time. So they don't really give them a priority, but Michael's the type of person who treats everyone equally and will be nice to someone that's just starting out as he would someone with a lot more experience.

And that's worked in his favour because that intern, they eventually went on to be hired by a big company. And he was the first person that she thought of when it came round to hiring an agency for work and that was him. And he ended up working with a number of really big companies because of that initial connection with that person. So really anybody at all could eventually connect you with someone else. So just building up that network, I think is absolutely essential. And if you are an introvert, like I am, you have to start breaking through those boundaries. And I think being honest, if you're not prepared to do that, I think you're really going to struggle being a freelancer or a business owner.

Sarah Townsend: For sure, I absolutely agree.

Ian Paget: Okay. So let's go through some of these survival skills or you called them coping mechanisms earlier. Can you share some of what these might be and we can dive into a few of them in a bit more detail?

Sarah Townsend: Yeah, for sure. So in the book, I bust what I considered to be the eight myths of freelance life. So these were the things. Basically when I first went freelance, it was 21 years ago. So I was a 29 year old young woman who knew nothing about running a business. And I just thought, as we've already talked about, that working for myself for would be kind of great, because I'm naturally a bit of a control freak. I love the idea of being my own boss and I was taken aback by a lot of the issues that I think most freelancers struggle with. And this was kind of born out by the research that I did for the book, because I actually spoke to over a 100 freelancers about their own experiences of freelancing. So the book is for freelancers of all kinds, there are quotes from quite a few graphic designers in there actually.

And it really reassured me that the issues that we feel that we're going through alone, we're really not, everybody really is going through the same challenges. So things like you feel that because you're running your own business, that you are alone and you're supposed to be doing everything yourself. So that kind of feeling of thinking, "Oh, I should be coping on my own," that quote that is quite often banded around about if you do a job you love, you'll never work a day in your life. I think that is so dangerous because everybody, whatever field they work in, whatever job they do, whatever experience level they are, everybody has bad days.

So I share a lot of the coping strategies to deal with the kind of the down times. It does have a fairly open heart in your sleeve, kind of mental health and well-being slant, as well as the practicalities, such as productivity tips and how to do things. It's kind of quite strong on the softer skills as well because these things are the issues that people don't generally talk about. So let's think of another. So thinking that when you've got a ton of experience, you won't get imposter syndrome with self-doubt, you won't worry about failing, you will. And I share some helpful strategies and tips to deal with that.

Ian Paget: I think rather than you continue, I think we can dive into a couple of these things already because I think loneliness or bit working alone is actually one of the big things. And that was what always one of my personal concerns about working for myself, because in reality, especially with the current global situation, you basically sit at home on your own day in, day out when you work for yourself. And that in itself can be hard.

Sarah Townsend: For sure.

Ian Paget: So how have you been able to get around that? I've got some ideas of my own, but a bit curious to hear your thoughts on that, how you avoid the potential of working just on your own quietly?

Sarah Townsend: The loneliness was probably the biggest issue and it hit me the hardest when I first started, because as I say, I've kind of become an extrovert over the years and I get my energy from being around people. So I had been working in a busy, buzzy agency sort of environment with lots of banter, lots of chat. It was always music going on in the background, there was always some sort of drama happening and I just become very used to working productively in that sort of environment.

So I was lucky enough, when I first started out, to have a spare bedroom. I went freelance when I was pregnant with my daughter who's now 21 and I didn't have kind of a nursery room then, I just had this spare room as an office. And I thought, "Yeah, this is great. I can do things my way and I can work when I want and how I want." And it just didn't end up that way at all, because I found not having anybody to bounce ideas off and to share kind of creativity, to ask questions, you don't realise how much you rely on that until you don't have it anymore, I think.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sarah Townsend: And for the first years, I really struggled with that because first of all... So just to backtrack slightly, in the book, I share three strategies to find your own community. This is chapter one because I think this is so, so vital for so many reasons. It's not just for your own kind of mental well-being, we're all social creatures, right? We all need to have that interaction with others. And this is more of an issue now than ever before, because even people who were used to working in an office environment or an agency or a call centre or whatever it is, they're all working from home on their own as well.

So these issues really do truly affect everyone. So the three coping strategies I share in the book are co-working spaces, networking groups, and online communities. And of course, at the moment, we're restricted big time with co-working spaces. So my co-working space, which I found really years and years, I mean, I'm talking longer than 10 years after working in the office on my own feeling lonely and really struggling with that, was finding the lounge bar at my gym. So my gym is 15 minutes walk from my home and I would usually get up really early in the morning, walk to the gym. So that's a nice bit of exercise, fresh air, being out in... Well, I say in nature, I live on a housing estate, I have to walk up this road, but still-

Ian Paget: Being outside in fresh air is a big deal.

Sarah Townsend: Absolutely. It is. So I see the trees and I look up at the sunshine, occasionally, and I kind of always try to be a little mindful about seeing the birds around and that kind of thing because that always lifts my spirits. So I would go and work at the bar in my gym and I'd be sitting there with my laptop, work for a couple of hours, always make sure I got up at least once an hour and just had a little bit of a walk around the place. And then perhaps late morning, I would go and do a class because I find, for me, exercise and activity are really important for my own mental health. And when I'd done that, I'd go back to my laptop and I'd find that having taken that break away from the laptop, you get into that can't see the wood for the trees feeling, don't you?

All you're doing is hunching over a laptop typing away or designing away all day. So getting up away from your laptop or away from your desk and doing some stretches and just loosening up and running up and down the stairs a few times or going and doing a class, go out on your bike for an hour is actually... It feels counterintuitive because we feel like we should be working all the hours because the success of our business relies on doing so. And in actual fact, taking those productivity breaks are so important that you can't do your best work for your clients if you're not taking care of yourself. It's really vital.

Ian Paget: Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. Something I've... Well, I mean, I'm not doing it at the moment, but when I first started, one of the ways that I got around that was to do similar to what you was doing. Although I found a nearby cafe that had a really nice area and I actually found a lot of other freelancers did exactly the same thing. So you came in at certain times, obviously you do have to buy something. That's the only downside, you can't just sit there and work all day.

Sarah Townsend: Yes.

Ian Paget: But that was a really nice way to get out of the house and also to meet other people doing similar things. But it just creates that buzz around you and it makes it more interesting. And I think that is one of the benefits of working for yourself is that you can change that location.

So now, I mean, I've got quite used to working from home and quite comfortable with that now, but trying to get into it, it was nice to be able to say, if I needed to do some idea generation, I could go to the park and sit in the park and get some fresh air in that way and work in a sketchbook or could go to a cafe, like I mentioned. And I'd normally just do admin in that time.

Sarah Townsend: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Any real focused work, I'd always do that at home, but it's nice that you can break the day down in that way. And it helps you through that whole cabin fever feel and allows you to meet other people and feel less like you're alone and in isolation.

Sarah Townsend: Absolutely. And it feels so important to do that because you're getting a fresh perspective, as you say, leaving those four walls and kind of kicking the cabin fever to the curb because you do need to be around other people. I need to be around other people. So I'm kind of not finding the lockdown situation all that easy. I can't wait to get back to working at the gym, but for the time being, where I'm finding my communities is online. So for example, your Facebook groups, there are things like Slack communities, joining in with Twitter hours, the LinkedIn community I've found is being really supportive lately. Instagram is brilliant for community and even just things like signing up for webinars and events where you know there are going to be like-minded people and just kind of make a note, literally have a piece of paper in front of you and just kind of make a note of people who are active in the chat, join in with the chat.

And then if you send them a connection request after the event and say, "Oh, it was great to chat to you or great to see you at this event, I'd love to keep in touch," or, "I'd love to connect," that's a really nice way of being memorable because that's something that not many people actually do. So what I usually do when I've been at an event is I'll send a connection request with a personalised note on LinkedIn. And then when that person accepts and sends me a note in response, I'll drop them a little voicemail because that's something that just feels... It feels authentic and genuine to me, I'm a person who likes to chat.

In a weird way, it makes me feel like I'm more connected and I've had so many positive responses saying, "God, I didn't even know you could leave voice notes on LinkedIn." So I think if you can be memorable, it's not only helping you with your own feelings of isolation and loneliness and kind of not having anybody to bounce ideas off. So it's helping you build your network for you, but it's also making you the person that other people are more likely to remember when they know someone who's asking for a graphic designer, because you've done something that makes them stand out.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I think that whole idea, sending a voice message is actually a really good idea because when you... I mean, especially the in-person events, you can speak to so many people and you actually forget who's who, I do anyway. So actually sending a little voice message is quite a nice personal touch. And it seems a lot more genuine than just literally connecting with someone because you think something might come of it. So I like that. I like that idea a lot.

Sarah Townsend: Yeah. You know the Maya Angelou quote? I love this. "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will always remember how you made them feel." And if you show a genuine interest in somebody or their business or what they do, and really make them feel special in some way, that's just a really important part of kind of building a network, but also becoming known and remembered. Ultimately, those are ways that don't just help you in terms of feeling less alone, but they will also help you when people are coming back to think, "Oh, who could I collaborate with on this project?" Or, "Who did I speak to who was really interested in this?" Or whatever. So those little ways of standing out.

Ian Paget: Mm-hmm (affirmative). And I mean, just that alone, it helps people understand that when they do work for themselves, you can sit there all day on your own, but actually there is a whole world out there and the tours and everything that we have now... Especially there's a new social media app called Clubhouse, which I absolutely love at the moment.

Sarah Townsend: Oh ok!

Ian Paget: For me, it kind of replicates real world networking in a way that no other online application ever has. And I can see that becoming either a really big new platform or like LinkedIn or Facebook or someone, are going to either buy it or just copy everything. So we'll see how that all goes. But I'm using that a lot lately. I think it would be worth going into some of this imposter syndrome stuff because I know that's something that a lot of people face, I face. What are some of the ways that you've used to get around that type of thing when you work as an independent or work as a freelancer?

Sarah Townsend: I have to say of all the chapters in the book, this is the one that I have to go back to most often, because I think people think, oh, when you've been doing something for a really long time, these issues don't affect you, but in my case, they certainly do. It was another of those things that you mentioned that you kind of think, "Oh God, I'm the only person going through this." But actually when you talk to other people... Everybody that I spoke to in the process of writing the book was like, "Oh God, yeah. Oh, imposter syndrome, my old friend." And only one person said, "Oh, I don't really believe that it's a thing, I prefer to call it 'winging it.'" But actually that's kind of what imposter syndrome is. So what she'd done was kind of, she'd given it a different definition, but I don't know if you've come across Leapers, the association for freelance... Kind of supporting freelancers' mental health and well-being.

Ian Paget: I haven't, but I will link to that in the show notes and check that out.

Sarah Townsend: They do an annual survey, which I quote a lot throughout Survival Skills for Freelancers, and one of the statistics that they share is that 76% of freelancers don't feel talented enough. That's shocking, isn't it? And that's not that they're not talented enough, that's how they feel about their own skills. So a lot of that comes down to comparing ourselves to others. So for example, in the book, I share six different strategies. And one of them is, "Avoid comparisonitis," because I can't remember who said this, but comparison is the thief of joy, it's so true. So you might be feeling quite good about yourself and thinking, "Okay, well, you know what? I'm doing all right at this freelance [inaudible 00:28:22]," but then there might be somebody else in your network who just appears to be all over social media.

And it feels like they're kind of ahead of all the new trends and you look at them and you could just kind of think, "Well, God, they're smashing it. I'm not doing anywhere near as well as they are." So if you keep that comparison in check... If you can feel yourself going into one of those spirals of negativity with the negative self-talk, you're kind of like, "Oh God, I should be doing this." Or, "What an idiot. This was an opportunity, I missed this opportunity. I should have done better." For starters, nip that in the bud, because if you wouldn't say it to a friend, don't say it to yourself, it's obvious because it's so easy to just get into that real spiral of negativity where you're really down on yourself. And it has a lasting damaging effect on your self-esteem and your feelings of self-worth.

And then that in turn can impact everything from how much you charge to the way you deal with your clients, to the level of confidence that comes across in your interactions. So definitely avoid comparisonitis. And also remember when you're looking at someone else's social media, social media is the outside, "So don't compare your inside..." So I didn't come up with this quote, I heard it and thought it was great. "Don't compare your inside to someone else's outside because we all know that social media is their edited highlights." It's the glossy coating and the cherry on top. It's not their nitty gritty kind of tough, challenging reality of running your own business. So just remember to kind of be kind to yourself, I think. You know that hashtag, "Be kind to your mind"? Kind of comes down to that, doesn't it?

Ian Paget: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Townsend: For sure. By keeping talking, I think about this, is a really powerful tool because there's nothing worse than feeling like you're in your own isolated bubble. You're working at home, you don't have anybody to interact with. And of course, you are the only person suffering from an imposter syndrome. But actually in reality, there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of freelancers out there who are going through the exact same thing, and by talking about it and kind of making it normal... I'm not suggesting we kind of navel gaze and go, "Oh yeah, this is terrible," but kind of share positive tips that work for you, for example, and say, "Oh yeah, imposter syndrome, I know I always get this feeling like I'm going to be found out or I don't think I'm good enough or whatever." By normalising it, we take the stigma away and somehow make it more... Well, less damaging, I think, and less harmful.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I totally agree with that. And it's been really interesting doing these podcasts. I know a lot of the guests that I've had on this show have been graphic designers that I've admired for years. And there's one of the really early episodes I did with David Airey, and he wrote one of my favourite logo design books that I pretty much saw as a Bible for logo design when I first started out. And I just remember him saying, "I'm not necessarily the best at pricing." And that uncertainty really surprised me, that everybody is still learning, still trying things. And I guess the reality of it, especially in the logo design space, there isn't really a right or wrong and there's no single set way of doing anything. And I totally agree with what you said about comparison, but it's really hard as a graphic designer this because you want to look at inspiration and you want to have things that to compare your work with.

But I think a healthy way to look at that is to find work that you deem as benchmark work. So it's work that you aspire to achieve rather than something that you look at and think, "My work's not good enough," because that way you are aspiring and learning and pushing yourself to improve and grow rather than start sinking into a deep dark place because doing that or working towards something, it's a little bit like that saying, "Target the stars and you'll hit the moon in the process," or whatever the saying is-

Sarah Townsend: Yeah, I know.

Ian Paget: If you aim towards that, at least you will continuously improve and even if you can become a fraction as good as those people, you're still going to be one of the best out there. So, hopefully that helps.

Sarah Townsend: For sure. Yeah. I think having some sort of aspirational people who you can look up to is great and is a really important point that you've just made there, Ian. But I think we all need to tune into what our mind is telling us because I think you can recognise quite quickly when scrolling for inspiration, intentional scrolling on social media, for example, becomes negative and potentially damaging. And I think sometimes it's just okay to just go, "Do you know what? I'm going to take a social media detox." I'm just going to stay off everything digital for... Apart from obviously your computer, you can't really avoid that. But stay off your phone kind of in your spare time for a night or 24 hours or whatever and just remember that everybody is on a different stage of the same journey.

So even if you kind of see yourself as being similar in terms of where you are in your career path to someone else and you feel as if you don't compare well to what they've achieved. But actually if you look back to perhaps their earlier work... Say for example, you wanted to do video for your work, to put yourself out there and your first video was a bit ropey and you're kind of like, "Oh yeah, I'm a bit embarrassed about this." But actually if you go back to your person that you're comparing yourself to, if you go back to their early stuff, chances are their early stuff was just as ropey. And maybe the last video from them that you watched was a 100 videos later. So whatever is, video or any other example, just be kind to yourself.

Ian Paget: Yeah. I mean, you can see that, go back to episode one or the first few episodes of this podcast and you'll see that in action. Because the more you do something, the more that you learn. So I think, if anything, great advice, when you first start something you're not going to be great, but learn from each thing and compare where you are now with where you was yesterday rather than comparing where you are now with where someone else is.

Sarah Townsend: Yeah. That's so important as well, exactly what you've just said. And I think this is another of the six pieces of advice that I share within the book. Always do celebrate, take time to celebrate and recognise your wins, and your achievements. Just take time out of your day and kind of... Or maybe once a month have a bit of a review of what you've achieved within the month and actually look back at where you've come from. And even if you don't feel as if you're progressing as quickly as you would like, it's just really nice to go, "Oh, hey. Yeah. I forgot that I'd achieved that." So I always say also to keep a piece of paper or a document somewhere with things like... Have it as a kind of a positivity file. So if a client says, "Oh, this is great work, amazing. You really got the brief, thank you. This is so creative. I love it."

These little tiny nuggets of praise or encouragement or just kind things that people have said or things that you're proud of yourself, keep a Word Doc and keep that topped up and refer back to it every once in a while. Or if you're creative, which all of your listeners will be, get a sheet of A3 paper and make it into kind of a colourful mind map, illustrate it, use fancy fonts and you can make it really special. But I think it's very easy to lose sight of the wins when you're down on yourself. And it's very easy to get down on yourself when you are self-employed if you're not careful.

Ian Paget: Yeah. You know what? I really like that idea and something that we started or rather my partner started it. She started something that we described as a positivity jar and in any good memory we had have, write it down on a piece of paper, fold it up and put it in a jar. And then the idea is at the end of the year, you can go through this, so little things that you would've forgotten, you open up and it can make you feel very positive. I don't know where she got that from, but she's very much into mental health and mental health support.

So it was possibly something that was in a book, but it's a similar idea to that. And that's actually a really nice idea. I should start doing that because you're going to have your ups and your down days. I've actually had clients that have made me cry. That type of thing can happen and you're going to have low days. So to have that reference there that can pick up your spirits is a really nice idea.

Sarah Townsend: Yeah.

Ian Paget: I want to go into some of the other topics in the book, because we've gone through 40 minutes already, which is amazing, it's gone really fast. So there's a section in your book about basically turning down work and I think that's really important as a freelancer, because it's really easy to think that you basically need to say yes to everything and that's the only way that you can survive, but actually saying no sometimes isn't a bad thing. So can you talk a little bit about that as well?

Sarah Townsend: Yeah, of course. I think it's something that certainly when you first start out as a freelancer or a self-employed person, it just feels like you wouldn't dream of turning work down, would you? Because it's early days, you've got bills to pay, a mortgage or rent to pay and you just feel grateful for every piece of work that comes your way. But when you get a little bit further down the journey, it's actually positively healthy to turn work down. And there are many reasons for this. First of all, everybody can relate to the bad client situation. And I think if you look back to an experience of working on a project that turned out to be an absolute nightmare, there are always signs early on in the process, you usually get some form of red flag. Maybe you just get a hunch that you feel a little bit uncomfortable when that client... When their name pops up on your phone or you get an email from them.

There's something that just doesn't feel quite right. And that's actually okay because the better you can tune into those instincts, the more likely you are to get the kind of work and to be able to focus on the kind of work that is inspiring and fulfilling and really excites you to get out of bed in the morning. For example, if you have a client who straight away, they say, "Oh, can you just do this for me? It should only take an hour." Actually that's for you to decide how long a job is going to take to complete because you're the expert and in a way, that's a kind of method of almost making what you do insignificant and sort of belittling it. So those clients who kind of... If you go to a client, for example, with a proposal and costs and you say, "Yeah, this piece of work will cost a £1,000 to complete." Always charge on a project basis, by the way, not an hourly rate or a day rate, but that's another subject.

So if you go to a client with your price and they come back and go, "Oh, well, we've been quoted cheaper elsewhere," or, "This wasn't really what we were looking to cost. This is outside of our budget. Would you do it for 750?" If you go back and say, "Oh yeah, okay." Then straight away, you're going to feel like that's knocked your self-worth because you've let the client dictate the terms of your working arrangement. And what you want to aspire to is relationships that are all on a level in terms of mutual respect, mutual trust. And you just like one another, you don't necessarily want to work with people who see you as a supplier because... I'm doing this thing with my hands right now that you can't see. So the supplier's kind of down there, the client's up there, they're going to be setting the terms of your working relationship from day one because you've bowed down to their terms. Do you see what I mean?

Ian Paget: Oh yeah. I had that, actually, only recently. I had a really great call with a client. They was actually happy to go with me, but they wanted to do some research just to compare and with logo design, obviously shopping around, you're going to find cheaper quite easily. So she came back to me and said, "I got quotes from two other companies and they've done this price and this price. Is there any way that you can come a little bit closer to these?" And I literally had to say, "Actually in your circumstance, I probably charged lower than what I should have done because of this, this and this and this. And unfortunately I wouldn't be able to reduce the price." And they still went with me anyway. I knew that they had the money. I mean, they're big international organisation. It's just some companies or some type of people are used to trying to bring the price down. But in most cases, in fact, every time that they've come back to me and asked me if I can reduce it, they still go with me anyway.

Sarah Townsend: Yeah.

Ian Paget: So, yeah.

Sarah Townsend: And let's be honest, you can't blame them for trying. I naturally have a haggler's mindset because I was brought up in an environment where money was very, very tight, so that's just the way I think. I'll always try and get a bargain, but at the same time, one way of overcoming that is getting crystal clear on the value of what you deliver. So you're working with a new client, you know exactly what you deliver to them. But as far as they're concerned, they're just getting a logo, which as far as they're concerned, might take, what? An hour to create. But the reason they might think that is because they don't fully understand the process and they don't fully understand the value of what you're delivering. So when you provide an estimate for any piece of work, if you can get really clear on what value you're delivering, you are far less likely to have cost hurdles and objections.

And they're far more likely to say yes to you right away. But just briefly going back to that situation where those clients... You're listening to your gut, you're tuned in to your instinct. It's good to say no, because those clients that you have a bad feeling about to begin with, sometimes it's okay for not every business to fit with you. A personality clash is a perfectly normal thing. You're not going to work perfectly with everybody. Why would you even want to? Personally, I want to work with people who are quite like-minded and quite similar to me. I don't take business too seriously, but I always deliver a 100% my best work, but I know that my clients think I'm fun to work with. So you've got to kind of work with people who you're going to enjoy working with as well.

And if you do take on those projects that you really wish you hadn't for some bizarre reason, those ones always end up being the absolute biggest time drains and they take up all your head space and you just wish that you... You kind of cast the day you ever took on that client and that piece of work. I don't know why that's true, but it always is. So saying no, it's quite natural to have a bit of a wobble after you've done it, certainly the first couple of times. But if you can help out the client by recommending a trusted colleague who might be a better fit, you can walk away from that situation with your head held high, because you know you've helped that client out. You've solved a problem for them. And you freed yourself up time and space to attract the clients and the work that really fulfils and motivates you. And that is so much more generally a way to get more enjoyment from self-employment.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah, definitely. And trusting your gut, I think that's so important. And I know in the last few months, I had this prospect client, we had a call on the phone. I explained my process and he had so many questions and I've never had anyone ask me so many questions on the phone.

Sarah Townsend: Oh gosh.

Ian Paget: And then the next day, he sent over a list of questions by email. And I thought, "Yeah, this is fair enough." Some of the questions, they made sense and then decided to go ahead. And then after sending over the contract, he sent over another list of questions. Some of them asking questions that I'd already answered in detail.

Sarah Townsend: Oh gosh.

Ian Paget: And one of them that he kept asking was, "What happens if I don't like it?" And I literally needed to go back to him and say, "Unfortunately, this isn't something that I want to proceed with because you've asked this particular question so many times, and coming into the relationship with doubts and concerns that I'm going to do the right job. And I think it would be better for us if we don't work together." Something along the lines of that, and obviously doesn't feel nice doing that. But I do not regret doing that because I know that if they're like that during the sales process, they're going to be like that through the entire project. And this wasn't a high value project, it was a fairly basic logo design project. And if they're going to be like that just at the beginning, every point of the presentation, it's going to be list after list, after list. And that's not something I particularly would like to do personally.

Sarah Townsend: No, I don't blame you one tiny bit for saying no to that one. It sounds like that would have been a very high maintenance client relationship.

Ian Paget: Yes.

Sarah Townsend: Another red flag, I think that maybe a lot of your listeners might have come across is when the client's first conversation with you says, "I've worked with lots of graphic designers, but I've never really found one who quite gets me." And I'm quite like, "Okay," because I don't like it if they start bad mouthing your colleagues. I just think chances are they're impossible to please, and they're going to end up feeling the same about you six months down the line and bad mouthing you to other people. So I don't tend to get involved when someone says, "Oh, I've worked with loads of copywriters, but none of them have got it quite right," because red flag.

Ian Paget: Oh yeah, definitely. And I think even if you are desperate for work, if there is doubts like that, it's not worth it. It's better to just invest the time that you would've on that project to finding better clients.

Sarah Townsend: Yes, yes. To focus on marketing, I think, I always say take the fear out of the quiet times, because we all know that quiet times are inevitable. That unpredictability of the workflow is something. I saw a quote on Twitter from somebody the other day saying, "Are you actually even a freelancer if you don't feel worried about having too much work and not enough work in the same day?" And I just thought, "Yeah, that's pretty much it."

But one way that you can take the fear out of it is to keep a list, a separate to-do list of practical, positive, proactive activity that you can do for your own business's marketing and use the quiet times to focus on that. So whether you are spending a bit of time refining your niche or working on your own website or writing some blog posts, producing some social media graphics, or simply just catching up with podcasts and reading, that will be good for your own personal development. If you can focus on those positive activities when you get the quiet times, rather than focusing on the lack of work, the quiet times, they last less time, they're shorter.

Ian Paget: Yeah.

Sarah Townsend: I don't know why that is, but I think it's something to do with the whole universal energy thing. I'm sounding really woo now, I realise that, but you know when you focus on something, you get more of what you focus on. So if you're focusing on the lack of work, it just seems to perpetuate and you feel all scrunched up in your head and all you can think about is, "God, I don't know where my next job's coming from." But as soon as you kind of free your mind to focus on something productive that is helping the marketing of your own business, the work does start flowing back in. Is that something you've ever found?

Ian Paget: Oh yeah. I mean something I like to do, and I've been quite lucky to be honest, since I've gone full-time, I've only had one or two days of quiet and it's just because I was waiting for everybody's feedback [inaudible 00:51:37].

Sarah Townsend: Yeah.

Ian Paget: And in that case, I just sat down and worked on case studies and the work that I've done on those case studies has ultimately helped to attract more work. So, I totally agree with that. We've got a little bit of time left. I think one topic in the book that's worth bringing up is the whole concept of saving money.

Sarah Townsend: Yeah.

Ian Paget: Because I know you've got a whole section in there about this. What's your thoughts on that for freelancers in terms of saving money?

Sarah Townsend: It's really twofold. First of all, having savings before you go out freelance. So if you're currently in an employed role or you're working for an agency and you have a steady income, make sure that you put a serious chunk of that money aside, because I would recommend having at least three months and ideally six months worth of living expenses, rent and bills and food, petrol, whatever. The kind of essentials to really to boost you up when you first get started, because we all know it takes a long time to find work when you first start out and then you've got to allow for time to do the work. And then you've got to allow, on top of that, time to invoice and to actually get paid. So sometimes even if you found a piece of work on day one as a freelancer, you may not get paid until three months later.

So having that reserve of cash, it's just a real piece of mind thing. Again, it kind of takes away the desperation around, "Oh my gosh, there's a piece of work I need to pitch for it. I need to get it." That kind of desperation just doesn't sit well with potential clients. It's like they can smell it a mile off and somehow it's quite off-putting. Kind of going back to what I've just said really about taking the fear out the quiet times, if you focus on doing productive activity and you know that you've got the savings to back you up and you don't have to panic about that, that's a really positive situation to be in.

And then the other side of that is to do with the money that you actually earn. Don't spend it all because it's not all yours, because you've got to remember that around a third of the income that comes into your bank account is actually for the tax. So tax and national insurance. I'm not a financial advisor, I'm going to specify that right now, but it's something that just catches out so many newbie freelancers because they don't realise, they think, "Oh yeah, I've just got paid a £1,000, go out and splash out on a trip away for the weekend," or something like that. And then when the tax bill comes, it's a big shock because you don't have the money saved up. So it's just a peace of mind thing, but it's really important.

Ian Paget: Yes. And it can really mount up. I think that's one of the big differences between working for a company and working for yourself is that you need to manage all of that and annoyingly, it's every single year, so it really mounts up. Something I do to help with that, and other people might want to do something similar. So I have a separate bank account where all of my income comes in and then that's kind of a cash pull that I can use for marketing and stuff. And I don't touch that, I pay myself with that.

So each month I give myself a salary and I transfer that through to another account and the tax money, I put that in a separate account again. So I know anything that's in the tax account... I put aside 35% of my income, each month I go through that and then I just transfer it over. So that's something that I just do monthly. I basically pay myself and pay the tax man. And that helps me to separate it so that I don't get to that point where I think, like you said, "Yeah, I've got loads of money. I need to go out and spend it." [inaudible 00:55:49] actually that's not mine to touch. And you never go into the tax stuff because it really does mount up. If you're on a 50,000 pound salary, you're paying probably 20 grand. So it can really hit people if they don't save up that money.

Sarah Townsend: Exactly. You're like a dream case study of that situation because what you said you do is exactly what I recommend. So, well done you.

Ian Paget: Yay. And I think on that note, on that high note, I think that's probably a good point to wrap up this interview.

Sarah Townsend: Cool.

Ian Paget: I want to recommend your book, Survival Skills for Freelancers. So I'm going to link to that in the show notes. That's full of loads of advice, we've only really covered it surface level, but I hope for anyone that's either thinking of going freelance or might already be freelance, I hope that listeners have got something from this. So thank you, Sarah, for coming on. It's been really great to chat with you.

Sarah Townsend: Amazing. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me on.