You’re a freelancer, so you already own a business, not a job….right??

No. 

Just because you’re a freelancer DOES NOT mean that you own a business. 

So, just to be sure, why don’t you…

If your answer is “NO” to any of these questions (or you’re feeling exposed), then you have a job NOT a business. 

Now there is nothing wrong with this per se.

But I know most of you didn’t get into the freelancing business to be chained to your desk, trading your hours for dollars because YOU are the product. 

I know you didn’t leave a full-time job to become an employee for rent, getting ALL the disadvantages of a “normal job” and NONE of the benefits of a full-time employee (salary, health insurance, PTO, etc.).

So if you’re in the freelancing game with the goal of owning a BUSINESS, here’s what you need to do to kickstart your transition and ditch your job →

If you’re a business, no one client should represent more than 10% of your total income. 

Now if you are currently relying on just a few clients to pay the bills, this might sound like a pipe dream. 

But it’s likely that you are in this position because of your rates. 

Start charging like a business by using this formula: 

Take the amount of money you want to make annually and divide it by the number of projects you’ll average annually (be conservative). To that quotient, add what it would cost you to responsibly sub-contract the job.

So if you want to make $100k/year and you can take on no more than 10 projects a year, and it would cost $5k for you to responsibly sub-contract the job, you will need to charge ~$15k per project to hit your goal. 

With this rate, you could subcontract every job and still make money (AND hit your income goal!). 

I know, this is probably a much bigger number than you’re used to, but there’s not much difference between a business that is charging that much for a project, and YOU. 

The main difference is they are ACTUALLY charging more. 

It might be scary this first few times, but trust me (and the math) and start charging more. 

Let’s talk a bit more about subcontracting. 

Maybe you’ve dabbled with hiring (or being) a subcontractor, but you probably aren't using subcontractors to the full potential that you could be to take you from “job” to “business”.

By subcontracting more jobs, you stop spending all your energy and effort on fulfilling client deliverables, freeing you up to work on the stuff that ONLY YOU can do for your business. 

These are super important, income generating tasks like finding and closing clients, developing new solutions and products that solve your client’s unique problems, and putting your “fairy dust” on projects before presenting the final to the client. 

If you haven’t worked with a lot of subcontractors yet, start connecting with people every week that you would want to work with, given the opportunity. 

Get on a quick 15-min call with them to connect and hear more about their services.

And while you’ve got them, ask for a ballpark of their pricing (making it clear you WON’T hold them to any hard numbers!). 

This gives you an idea of 1, what client budgets would fit with their rates (so you don’t waste anyone's time with the perfect project and not enough budget).

And 2, you start to get an idea of what other subcontractors would charge, which is helpful for pricing your services like a business (the formula from above). 

You can and should be developing productized services and digital products alongside your bespoke services. 

These offers are typically at a lower price point compared to your bespoke services, and they are optimized for scale.

No sales calls or meetings, just you give me this (input) and I’ll give you that (output).

If you’re not sure where to start with this, assess your niche and catalog all the problems your potential clients are facing. 

Find a way to solve their biggest problems in the cheapest way (little to no time from you), and your product will sell itself!

The additional revenue stream from you non-bespoke services diversifies your income without requiring a lot of additional time from you (in fact, maybe you can hire a subcontractor to fulfill these orders?).

So you CAN take a month off of work and STILL MAKE MONEY, just like a business owner. 

Easier said than done, I know…

But possible!

Best, 
Jamie

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