Going freelance is a big decision; you are basically going into the wilderness. To be blunt, most freelancers fail. The failure rate in 2008 of start-ups (small businesses) was 80%. The last survey I took was 2005; (only way to get them free) the failure rate for freelance web designers for the first 2 years was 98%. As you can see the cards are stacked against you. The biggest reason for most small business failures is planning and lack of capital. Many web designers also shoot themselves in the foot.

Lack of Discipline

You must treat freelancing like a real job. Are you the type of person that can concentrate no matter what kind of distractions are going on around you? You must be able to do the work without letting the distractions effect you. If you can’t work without a boss stopping you from being diverted by the constant stream of chores and chaos that happen in the home environment, rent an office or find a new job.

The hardest part of discipline is solitude. You must be able to work alone and keep from letting you mind wonder. It is very easy to become bored with what you are doing and then seek something to distract you from the boredom. For most people that distraction is the TV. Make sure you do not have a TV near by! If you need a distraction go for a long walk and clear your mind. I grab a sandwich and walk to the fitness center to workout for 45 minutes for lunch. When I get back I am ready to go, mind cleared and new ideas flow.

Lack of Knowledge

The trinity of Cajun cook is bell pepper, onion and celery, and the holy trinity adds garlic. For a web designer the holy trinity is (x)HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Graphics. If you can not use any of these languages you are probably just a graphics designer playing web designer. The three languages must be known by heart to be able to make your designs work best and troubleshoot problems. There are lot of other things you should know about web sites and website design. After all, your clients are paying you not only to design but know how everything works, because they don’t. Dreamweaver can’t save you!

Fear

To quote the movie Dune “fear is the mind killer”! Fear in any small business is always a factor but you must overcome it. In the web design business there are two types of fear that will bury you.

1.  Trying to make your price quote lower than any others. You can not compete with the bottom feeders. There is no way for you to make a living trying to compete with someone that thinks $600 is good money. You can churn out website after web site for cheap but in the end all you are doing is going around in circles. Wearing out you creative side and working long hours to eek out a living.

2. The fear that the job is too big. No job is too big!! Put together a team of people and bid on those large websites. You can not always work alone. I put my first tem together in 1998 and still use 70% of that team when need. They still use me when they have the need. Don’t let the big jobs scare you away, become the captain of the team and act like the captain.

Working without a contract

“There’s a sucker born every minute” by P.T. Barnum. If you work without a contract you are that sucker. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard freelancers complaining about being taken advantage of or not being paid because they worked without a contract. I don’t care how much you want the job, never work without a contract. It might not put you out of business but sure can hurt.

Conclusion

After 14 years this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to hear more, tell me. If you think its hogwash tell me

It was January 1999 when I received an email from the CEO of a large corporation stating that my company has been chosen to bid for their web site redesign. There were only three companies chosen and if I want to compete, I should reply to the email. I replayed to the email and they sent the specs.

The first thing in the specs, they wanted to know what my company structure was. I am a freelancer not a company. There was me and my ex-girlfriend, the copywriter. This would be the first large corporation site that I would bid on and had no idea what would be involved. My day had been in the corporate world until he started his own company, so, I gave him a call.

My dad’s advice: large companies and corporations work in teams. When a large company has a project, they form teams from the different departments to get the project done. They want to know that you have a team that can get website design and development finished on time and on budget. Just as I was about to hang-up, I heard hey! I answer what! Put on a suit, polish your shoes, and go get a manicure before you go. Why, you will see why! So, StarChaser Web Design just became a company, kind of, and I became a suit wearing executive.

I made a few call to people I have contracted work out to. Explaining about the job bid and I may need them if I get the job. My phantom company was now complete; all I needed to do was make a chart of the structure. The rest of the specs were pretty much the norm; Navigation, pages, newsletter, et cetera. Now, I only had 6 days to put it all together and have it printed and bound. You have to remember at that time laptops were very expensive and were pure crap. I polished the presentation, sent it to the Kinko’s, dropped the suit off for cleaning, and went for my manicure.

The Game is Afoot

I crawled out bed early the morning of the interview, taking as much time as need to primp. Their headquarters was 45mi/72K away; so I had a lot of time to rehearse what I was going to say. Upon arrival I was met in the lobby by the head of the IT department. Looking around I could see why the suit and shoes, I was in Brooks Brothers heaven. When we got to the top floor I was ready. The IT guy opened the door to the boardroom and I remember thinking Tallyho, the game is afoot! Don’t know why that popped into my head but it did. Walked in shook all hands, gave out the presentations booklets and started right in.

To make a long story shorter, I didn’t get the job. So, why did I write all this? To lay the groundwork for what came next. About 3 months later I decided to go back and look at their web site. What I saw floored me. They had used every one of my ideas and all my suggested changes. The sites didn’t look that good and whoever built it used heir menus. All I could say, you don’t always get what you pay for!

Six months later I ran into the CEO at a charity function. We shook hand and I couldn’t resist asking "You used all my ideas and suggested changes, why not me?" He smiled and answered "your bid was to low". We didn’t think you could get the job done for what you bid. As for you ideas, you didn’t make us sign paperwork forbidding us from using them without paying you.

In the end there were only 2 bids the third bid was rejected because he was a freelance designer and they thought he could do the job. What’s the moral of this longwinded story of mine?

Conclusion

• I made the mistake of not checking their financial records to see what they were spending on public relations and what their IT department was costing. If I had done my homework right, I would of bid higher. Never bid low!!! You can always negotiate down, never up!

• Never give away your ideas. Make them sign an NDA stating that they can’t disclose or use your ideas with paying you

• Dress to the max and sell yourself as much as you sell the product. Make them believe without you the project will fail. How could they turn you down if you are the god or goddess of web design?

• As the Grayscale Gorilla says. "Work for free, work for full price, but never work cheap"!