Freelancer Five – Jess Lewis

2. How and why did you start freelancing?

I studied Graphic Communication at university and after graduating started a junior design role in a design agency local to me. During that time, I picked up freelance projects on the side for friends and family. Through recommendations and word of mouth this steadily increased overtime. After two years of working at this agency, I had built up enough repeat clients that I decided to set up my own business full-time. Although it felt like a scary decision at the time (and still does at times!), it was the best decision and I thoroughly enjoy the freedom of being able to choose who I work with.

3. Where do you find your clients and new projects?

The biggest thing that works for me is networking and making real connections with people. It still is the best way to get work in the door. Now video calls are the norm, I try to connect with prospective clients on LinkedIn and invite them for a video chat, just to introduce myself, tell them what I’m doing and to find out what they’re doing. It may not lead to immediate work, but when that time comes, you want to be at the top of their minds. I’m lucky that a lot of my clients and prospective work now come through recommendations. Liking or sharing people’s posts, commenting on clients’ updates, and reaching out to brands you’d love to work with – it all helps build a network and raise your profile, thus hopefully opening doors.

If I know a quiet patch is approaching, I have a few tactics I lean on. In the beginning, I used to send companies printed mailers with examples of my work and reasons why they should hire me. I think people still really like receiving things in the post! Nowadays, I focus my energy on emails and digital campaigns instead, as well as the odd LinkedIn post. Every few months, I try to pull together my most recent work into an email campaign and send it to my subscriber list I’ve built up. I think it’s important to push your work out into the world to try and create those opportunities for yourself.

4. How do you know what to charge?

When you venture into freelancing, it’s difficult to know what to charge – you don’t want to charge too much and price yourself out of the market, but you don’t want to undersell yourself either. When quoting jobs, I try to stick to my pricing strategy, which nowadays is based on a day rate, and work out roughly how long the job will take plus allow for an extra day or two for feedback, amends and time spent discussing the project with the client. Here’s a few tips I’ve learnt along the way:

• Do some research to see what others are charging – reach out to friends or colleagues in a similar area.
• Calculate your overheads – this will give you an idea of the minimum amount you need to earn to cover your expenses.
• Consider how much you want to earn per year – taking into account weekly hours and holidays.
• Get comfortable talking about money – it’s a bit of a taboo subject, but try to be open and upfront about how much you charge and don’t be afraid to negotiate.
• Try to establish a budget from the client before quoting – that way you can get a feel for the clients expectations and can adapt your fee accordingly.
• Every project is different – for some projects you may work off hourly rates and others may be based on a day rate or project based fee. Your monthly income may also fluctuate based on the projects you take on, so it’s good to be flexible and look at your income in a broader perspective.

5. What are your must-haves as a creative freelancer?

Tools and equipment:

• Good laptop stand or display – I use an iMac at home and a laptop if I’m out and about 
• Some good tunes/podcasts to listen to whilst you work
• Hard-drives, lots of hard-drives
• Adobe CC account

Project management:

• Trello
• Slack
• Google Drive

Website builder: 

• Squarespace, this also has an email campaign builder too

Invoicing software:

• Quickbooks

Website: www.madebyjess.co.uk 
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jess-lewis
Instagram: @jess_e_lewis