Start Your Freelance Business Now Before The Next Recession
If you’re a parent who is getting a little nervous about your job security, this post is for you. Let’s discuss how to start a freelance business during a recession and why you should.
Some financial experts have stated that we’re already in a recession but it won’t become a mainstream announcement for another couple of months.
We need to see continued economic growth declining for another quarter as well as unemployment numbers start to rise. I don’t see how we can avoid it at this point.
You can’t have inflation as bad as we’ve had it and not get sunk into a recession when interest rates are shooting up. And your employee wage likely isn’t even coming close to keeping up with inflation. That’s unnerving when you have a family to support.
So first, we’ll talk about why you should start a freelance business now, and then we’ll cover the best first steps to get a side hustle started so if you do lose your job later this year you already have something to turn to.
Freelancing is one of the best ways to thrive during a recession because businesses still need certain work done, but it’s cheaper for them to hire a freelancer than an employee.
Much cheaper. And on the flip side you can earn a much higher income as a freelancer because you can have multiple clients.
One client might only be paying you $500 per week to manage their social media strategy but they would be paying an employee potentially $1,000 per week to do the same thing plus all the benefits attached to employment.
And then if you have 8 clients paying you $500/week to spend 3 hours of your time per client, that’s $4,000 per week for you to work 24 hours a week. That’s $16k per month. That’s how you thrive during a recession and any other period of time.
While many others are losing their jobs, your income is increasing, which means you can use the opportunity of the prices of everything getting lower to invest and secure a better future for your family.
Another reason why businesses love hiring freelancers during recessions is because of the flexibility of only paying for work they need done.
The priorities of a business fluctuate a lot more during tough economic times, and so it’s very attractive to them to be able to just pause their contract with you at any time or just not send you new work and only pay for when they want work done. If they had an employee in your place, they would have to keep paying that person the same amount or fire them completely.
Now, what are some first steps to get started on what will be a side hustle for now, but a full-time freelance business in the future?
Brainstorm what services you could offer as a freelancer.
What skills do you have? They could be either creative or technical, or perhaps you have strategic experience and could be a consultant in some area? Start listing all the potential jobs you could do as a freelancer. There are many.
You could be anything from a graphic designer to an engineering consultant, a marketing strategist, or social media manager. Almost anything you can think of can be converted into a freelance business.
Figure out who would be the best target client.
What types of businesses have you worked for as an employee? Those types of companies are ones you’re most familiar with and may have the easiest time selling your services to, at least to start. What is the ideal size of the company? Startup, small, medium? Or are you serving individuals as a career coach or life coach?
Convert your resume into a freelancer portfolio.
I have other videos explaining how to do this, but essentially you’re formatting it and editing it in a way that is much more results oriented and reflects the services you want to sell as a freelancer, while omitting everything else.
Setup an account on a freelancer marketplace like Upwork.
I recommend that you start submitting proposals to as many job posts as you can just to at least practice, even if you don’t get any responses.
I’ve found my first clients on places like Upwork and it’s a great way to get your foot in the door on the side while keeping your employee job because you’re not advertising your freelance business on LinkedIn yet because that could cost you your job if your employer sees you pursuing other things. They’re much less likely to find you on Upwork.
It may seem like extra work to take on a side hustle and get your business started while you still have a full time job, but it’s worth the effort.
Even though you can wait until the recession or a job loss to start a freelance business, I don’t recommend it because you’ll be trying to get going while many others are as well. So get ahead of the curve, and save yourself the extra competition.
That’s it for today. I hope you can get motivated enough to start adapting your career before you have to. Start building up a freelance business on the side so you at least have some prospects if a recession really does come and you lose your job. And you might even change your mind and stop seeing freelancing as temporary. Once you’re doing it full-time, you’ll never want to go back to an employee job, especially if you’re a family man like me.
See you later!