World Bank Data shows that for the year 2023, 46.4% of all workers worldwide are self-employed / freelancers, showing that more and more people are finding working individually more appealing than working under a company.
Freelancers as a term was introduced in the early 2000s and comes with many risks and struggles but we are here to help you turn those Cons into Pros.
Lack of stability - less security.
At one point you might have tons of clients and none the next day. It is up to you to grow while working from home. Freelancing might not give you any financial insurance, but it promises many experiences.
Working from home
Freelancer is all about working from home in your pjs or best-case scenario at your local café. But that doesn’t have to be the case. As a freelancer you get to choose where you work, so if you want to be more focused you can choose a HOT DESK option, which can
be rented per hour or per day providing you with a desk, business environment, high speed business internet and all this at the cost of a coffee.
Late payers
Some of the clients might be late payers, so the best way to prevent it is by accepting as many different forms of payments as possible. So have Bank Transfer, PayPal and if you are looking for a cost-effective credit card payment solution try Sum-up. And also ask part of your payment before you start to work.
Tax worries/ All the responsibility
You are responsible for your business success (and failure). In addition, you need to learn how to do your own self-employment taxes, invoicing, even organizing your own vacation and time off. The good thing is that now with ready-made accounting software like QuickBooks it can do 90% of your accounting automatically at a minimum cost.
Working in isolation
Cutting out of the isolation is easy. Just search a Shared office space that will put you around link people with the same mind-set.
You have to advocate and market yourself.
As a freelancer you have to market/advertise yourself. Most of the times it will feel that you are at a constant job search with the networking and connections, opportunities and rejections. But once your circle is whole enough and you manage to penetrate the market you can consider yourself expert in the field and get more opportunities.
Freelancing can be a great way to build a career on your own terms, with greater flexibility, autonomy, and earning potential. Just work around the cons and hopefully it will be the best choice you made!!!