Going solo

• Independence
• Dissatisfaction with salaried employment
• Freedom to select who to work with, when and where
• The best way to develop a career
• Flexibility of hours to fit in with parenting

What’s it really like?
Being freelance is different from other forms of self-employment – you still work for an employer or several employers but have to develop a completely different set of relationships with them. Employers are now your customers, you are their supplier. You have to become indispensable to them, providing solutions to their problems, some of which they may not even realise they had. In many ways you have to behave like their dream employee, being more willing and available than you may have got used to whilst in a ‘proper job’.

You also have to be aware of, and sensitive to, the fact that you can be seen as a threat by your customer’s conventional employees, who may regard you as taking work they could do. Successful freelancing relies on the co-operation of everyone you come into contact with. Work that brings you into conflict with an existing workforce can be more trouble than it’s worth.