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Can you find
freelance work while
still working full time?
Yes and no is the
answer. You can most
certainly develop
relationships with
potential clients while
you are still working in
full-time employment but
it will be difficult to
find a specific
freelance project. A
critical change of
thinking when you become
a freelancer is that you
are not looking for a
freelance job, you are
looking to build
long-term relationships
with a small number of
clients who will give
you regular projects
when they become
available. You can take
steps to develop
long-term relationships
while you are still
working in full-time
employment.
I would also
recommend doing a lot of
market research before
you take the plunge. You
need to find out whether
there is indeed a market
for freelancers in your
area of work. First of
all, does your current
consultancy or company
actually use
freelancers? If so, why
do they use them, what
do they use them for and
how much do they pay
them? It may be that
they only use
freelancers for a
particular type of work
or for more strategic
purposes. You can also
think about your
previous places of
employment and see | |
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freelancers.
You need to work out
potential sources of
employment as a
freelancer. Would this
be the end-clients,
consultancies, agencies
or other organisations?
You need to work out
the route to market for
freelancers. How does
this vary by type of
client? If you are in
the public sector
working for an NHS trust
there may be a very long
and tortuous process of
getting yourself
accepted as the
consultant. If you are
in the private sector it
might literally be one
phone call to a
consultancy and within a
couple of weeks you
could have a long
project with them.
The key thing you can
do while still in
full-time employment is
to build your network of
potential clients. It
will be much easier to
ask people for freelance
work if you already have
strong relationships
with them. This will
involve solid
networking, attending
industry events and
conferences before
building up your
LinkedIn and Outlook
contacts databases. If
you can spend six months
developing a large
extensive database of
potential clients, you
will be in a solid
position to obtain your
first freelance
consulting project.
What utilisation
rates can you expect?
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Richard Stewart,
managing director of
Mindbench, a specialist
recruitment consultancy
for management
consultants focusing on
both permanent and
freelance opportunities,
says that freelancers in
their first two years of
business can generally
expect a 50%-80%
utilisation rate. This
obviously depends upon
their skills, expertise
and some of their 'soft'
skills and ability to
network.
Assuming there are
250 working days in a
year, 50%-80% should be
your goal per year.
However, Stewart warns
that in difficult
recessionary times,
utilisation rates could
fall to 30%-40% for
some.
Another way of
looking at utilisation
rates is to consider the
minimum rate you need
per year to cover all of
your costs. How much
money would you need to
survive in a year? This
will give you the
minimum amount of money
you need to earn each
month. Dividing the
total amount of money
you need to survive in
one year by your day
rate will tell you the
number of days you need
to work in a given year
to survive. How many
months of work does this
come out to? This will
give you your minimum
required utilisation
rate in your first year.
So, how realistic is
it to achieve this
utilisation rate? The
first and best way is to
ask people already out | |
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What is their
utilisation rate over
the last five years –
and more particularly
when they first started
out? Ask your contacts
in the industry you want
to enter or go to
Linkedin and do a search
in your network or a
general search to find
freelancers or freelance
consultants in your
respective area.
Once you have
established their
approximate utilisation
rates, you will have a
much better idea of what
you can expect by going
freelance.
What day rates can
you expect?
There are a couple of
ways of establishing
this. One is to survey
the marketplace as to
what day-rates are
currently being achieved
by freelancers at your
level. You can do this
by asking other
freelancers in your
field of work and
speaking to agencies and
permanent employers
about their freelance
rates.
Mindbench’s Stewart
suggests using the
following formula. Work
out the total value of
your remuneration for
your current full-time
job. Add up the value of
your base salary +
bonuses + benefits.
Divide this figure by
250 (the number of
working days in a year).
This will give you the
bottom end of the day
rate range you can
expect to achieve in the
marketplace.
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For example, if your
total package in the
marketplace comes to
£100,000 then divide by
250 to get a minimum day
rate of £400. There is a
premium because the
employer paying you as a
freelancer does not need
to deal with your
National Insurance, tax
and benefits etc. So,
Stewart suggests a day
rate up to twice as much
this minimum figure. So
in this example, your
day rate range would be
£400 to £800 per day.
There are,
unfortunately, no fast
and hard rules about how
long it will take to get
your first job and what
your utilisation and day
rates will be. However,
the more you can prepare
for the day you go
freelance by building a
solid and strong network
of potential clients as
well as making sure
there is in fact a
market in the first
place, the better your
chances of success.
Rahul Nag’s blog
offers specific business
development and
marketing advice for
freelance consultants or
those considering
becoming freelancers:
www.freelanceconsultancy
success.com.
Top-Consultant.com’s
careers event on 14th
December also addresses
many of these themes for
those at the stage of
weighing up career
options. | |
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