Who is a freelancer?

As popular as freelancing has become in this current century, many people still find it hard to grasp the idea behind freelancing and who a freelancer is. While some people think it is a fairy tale type of career where you can do anything you want at any time, others think it is a non-rewarding working arrangement for lazy people. While none of these thoughts is correct, freelancing is a simple term to understand and as many people today are embarking on their journey to becoming complete freelancers, others are running freelance services as a side hustle. This article attempts to explain the concept of freelancing, demystify the misconceptions around it, and identify the characteristics of freelancing.

What is freelancing?

Freelancing is simply a term used for people who basically work for themselves instead of companies. Although freelancers may take up contract jobs for companies and organisations, they are ultimately self-employed. The term freelancing originates from Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott in his novel Ivanhoe when he described Italian and French mercenaries as “freelances”, meaning they were free men who offered their services (in this case, their skill with a lance) to wealthy landowners. They basically amounted to a private army and would fight on their Lord’s behalf against groups loyal to other noblemen. Here are some characteristics of freelancing which distinguish it from other arrangements that you should know about:

1. Additional roles

One of the most distinguishing factors of freelancing is that as a freelancer you have to perform additional roles which are not part of your regular work. As a freelancer, you would have to take up some administrative roles such as creating invoices, filing tax, keeping track of different projects and so on. Unlike in a company where administrative duties are handled by a separate set of people, freelancers do not have this privilege and this is one of the things that make freelancing different from traditional work.

2. Search for clients

Unlike traditional workers, freelancers have to search for clients before they can get projects to work on. One of the main characteristics of freelancing is the constant search for clients, freelancing have to use several means such as networking, sending cold emails and calling up companies in order to get projects to work on. The life of s freelancer is basically moving from one project to another so any freelancer who wants to be successful has to be skilled in the art of client search. This has however been made easier by platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork where you can meet freelancers.

3. Flexibility

If a group of freelancers were gathered into a room and asked about a distinguishing characteristic of their job, many of the answers would be flexibility. Freelancers enjoy a lot more flexibility at work than traditional workers, and this has its pros and cons. Freelancers enjoy flexibility in the sense of determining their working hours, determining their fees and setting deadlines for projects. Flexibility has a number of pros and cons however its advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Firstly, flexibility allows you to work at your own pace without unnecessary external pressure, it also affords freelancers the ability to complete projects to a level of satisfaction. The disadvantages of flexibility is that the absence of external pressure might encourage laziness and make freelancers relax.

4. Free will

Unlike traditional work, freelancing comes with a lot of free will. Freelancers are allowed to decide for themselves who they want to work for and on what projects they want to work on. This characteristic is not common for people who work for companies who only have to do the work they are given by their employers. Freelancing also makes it easy for people to specialise in particular areas unlike traditional work or 9 to 5. A freelancer can easily decide to focus on a particular area and only receive jobs from clients who want work done in that area.

5. Risks and uncertainties

Another notable characteristic of freelancing is that it is riddled with many risks and uncertainties. Freelancers sometimes have to take the risk of completing projects and not getting paid for the work done. Due to the fact that most clients of freelancers pay after the job is done, some shady characters take this as an opportunity to swindle freelancers. Freelancers run their businesses on their personal pockets therefore it is expensive to take legal actions against people who fail to pay for services they have rendered. Distance is also another factor that might make it hard to recover money especially when both parties live in different countries.

6. Personal expenses

If you want to start working as a freelancer, one of the things you must be ready to do is spend. A freelancer incurs expenses in acquiring the necessary tools, equipment and facilities needed to start a business. For most people this includes tools such as computer equipment, office space where necessary, payment of subscriptions for learning programmes and so on. This is not the same in traditional work where all the initial costs and expenses are shouldered by the company which most times provide tools for work and pay extra costs for training of their staff.

With these few characteristics that have been explained, you should get a clearer picture of what freelancing entails and who a freelancer is. So the next time someone says he/she is a freelancer, you won’t have to ask them to explain what they do again