Freelance Work

[Will]

Good Morning All,

I have been wanting to start doing some work on the side for a while and I have been thinking through it. In my work, I see that a lot of folks that desire to develop their properties but are not at the stage of hiring a firm to develop a full master plan or CD’s. Typically, they are individual property owners that need some conceptual drawings to take to the city, investor, or potential buying before investing into hiring a firm.

That been said, if you do set up a freelance gig, do you need to “pretend” to be firm and develop a website/phone/social or do you need to be upfront in your marketing that you work on weekends (or lunch breaks)? Does anybody have examples of website or social media for part time gigs?

If I am doing strictly conceptual work, do you still need to sign a contract and everything?

Thanks!

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

Honesty is the best policy. If you are capable most people understand that it takes a bit of time to build up enough work to go full time into freelance design. They will know up front that you can only be reached at certain times and such.

I worked for 5 years “on the side” to get established while working full time in a civil engineering office (with my employers knowledge). I was totally upfront with that with my potential clients and the ones that hired me were good with that.

Always have contracts and always take a retainer. Never value doing the work more than the person hiring you.

[J. Nielsen]

Upwork.com is a freelancing site that caters to the individual designer and provides various services, such as contract writing, escrow, third party arbitration, as well as various communication services.

There are pros and cons, but overall it is worthwhile site to work off of.

As far as setting yourself up as a business, it is always a good idea to separate your work life from your personal.

[Will]

Anybody have any examples on how to market yourself as a freelancer? Know any freelancer that has an internet presence that I could take a look at?

[J. Nielsen]

There are numerous folks out there working as freelancers, from all over the world and all have a different approach to their web presence. So numerous examples of web presence are out there.

Seek out profiles of freelancers on websites like UpWork.com, LinkedIn.com, and others. At the end of the day it is a personal decision on how you proceed. find what is best for your situation and go with it. Just understand that freelancing, from my perspective, is 85% hustle, 10% managing time and 5% meeting deadlines. Be prepared to write a lot of proposals that get ignored.

[Author]

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