Quit my job and gone freelance!

mrkidd85

I work in SEO and social media, and for the past few months I've been building myself up to leaving my job. I've got a lot of experience and am (I like to think) very good at what I do.
There were a few reasons why I decided to do it. The first one being my boss was a !!!!!!. He promised a few bonuses on things and didn't deliver.
I don't think I was paid enough for what I did. I entered a year ago as a trainee, and only had one payrise. I checked industry averages and my wages was about 75% of it. I also saw what we charged clients for my work, and it was about 10 times what I was paid.
In the industry, you'll never make it if you work for someone else. It's the way it works.
I've signed up 2 clients from people per hour. Charging them £5 an hour for 2 weeks with then the option of going to £10 (both have decided to continue). It's not a lot so far but with no references it's a start. I've also got my own project that I couldn't work on before.
Currently, the money from my clients is more than the wages I was on, and I'm negotiating with a few more businesses. It feels great! I know it's a long road ahead, but getting work to begin with is a great start. I know a lot of local businesses who want work doing, and although my friends and family think I'm mad, I think I've made the right choice.
So basically, that's it. Does anyone else have experience of going solo? Whether in my industry or a different one. I'd like to hear your stories.

cyberstar

I'm interested in what sort of training did you do to become a freelance SEO consultant. Was it self taught?

chika

Well done you. I'm contempating doing a similar thing soon. I bet it feels great to have all the profit coming to you!

Mistral001

Been "freelance" for 14 years.

You are not charging enough. You should aim at charging 2.5 times your present salary, not just slightly more than the wage you are getting now. As time goes by, there will always be pressure on you to reduce fees and if you increase them you will loose some clients. So aim high with fees when starting off.

mizzbiz

I freelance too - the freedom is fantastic but it is harder work than going to a job each day. Finding clients, balancing deadlines, motivating yourself when working from home, assuring yourself that that peice of work is more important than the dishes being done!!

I agree with the above however, you must charge more than you are - £5 per hour is slave labour for a hard earned skill. SEO's charge a fortune for their services - your clients must have seen you coming.

alisonmeyers

mrkidd85, my brother actually owns his own SEO agency. His company offer website design and development, but as a sideline - their main focus is the online digital marketing.

I helped out there with their admin for a year when I needed flexible hours when our smallest was not at school age yet (although my own career is in (print) marketing, so not a million miles off - I do have a solid marketing background for the record).

My brother comes from an IT background (programming) so he has a solid foothold on the technical side of things, but he generally hires people at all levels, ex-freelancers, new graduates, experienced hires - and that's from people with a similar IT/programming or software background right across the board to copywriters and "softer" skilled folk - I helped out on interviews on a few occasions so got to see that side of things too

However, what I will say is this: in SEO, you can be worth £5 an hour or £5000 an hour. The results you get should speak volumes - I know my brother has been paid on a comission only basis on some of his firms projects, for example, and made a killing. Although that isn't so common now (i think) due to his clients being more blue chip, medium sizes these days. His firm has grown to 50 employees at the last I heard. And he's crying out for good candidates - not just people who fill a small niche, but marketeers who also can code, those who span several skillsets, and so on.

Put it this way: at £5/hr I think you have your pricing all wrong - that's absolutely a shocker (too low) for the industry and what you can deliver. It screams "I'm not confident in my ability or costings". Although I see you actually only have 1 year's experience - so I assume you have confidence in your ability?

What you provide is a specialised area of IT consultancy... what sort of consultant charges his expertise out at £5/hr?!

Either a crap one, or one who hasn't done his market research on the rates (which from your OP it sounds like you have...). So I'm confused.

Put it this way:

My brother's agency charges £500/day on a retainer (and that was 2 years ago, so I assume more now) and £950 for client training at their offices. Although he's commutable from London, so definitely an expensive part of the country.

Seriously, please do re-consider your costings here and check into all the practical side of things when it comes to being freelance (not sector specific e.g. cost of a laptop, cost of renting your office or home electric bill, cost of an accountant, cost of professional development and training costs).

Remember that there's no holiday pay, no sick pay, no one to tide you over when the tax bill hits, or in low months - all this needs to be costed into your rates.

And at £5/hr it can't possibly be. And it won't attract the type of clients that bring in good money or a good sustainable relationship. SEO is a specialise sub-set of webdevelopment and marketing. Because you (should) have the specialist skills the role requires, that demands a premium.

It usually does. And because I see you thinking the £5/hr is acceptable for now, I wonder about:

- your ability
- your experience
- your understanding of the reality of being a freelance

Think of it like web design. Would you really want to base your financial security by launching yourself as a "I can build your website for £5/hr" guy? If not, why not? Get my point? What you're offering is expertise which is higher paying than web development, yet you're charging peanuts - are you that bad? If not, you should look at competative pricing to get yourself started - but none of this minimum wage nonsense.

I know inexperienced copywriters with only a few projects to their name who are easily charging three times that, and they aren't the expensive ones! And they're not even SEO consultants, they're just copywriters hired for web copywriting who take in the project remit, which has a few changes compared to your normal print work/copywriting. But my point about charging structures still remains true.

In summary - utter madness on your part - poor research methinks. Unless you haven't got the expertise to feel comfortable charging the going rate - in which case you need to get yourself back into employment and spend a wee bit more time working for The Man before thinking you know enough / have the skills to set up on your own.

Sorry to be harsh. I'm just astounded by how naive your post is - and that's from someone like me who hasn't even worked in the industry beyond a dab of admin for an SEO agency.

alisonmeyers

cyberstar wrote: »

I'm interested in what sort of training did you do to become a freelance SEO consultant. Was it self taught?

My brother's firm mostly hired graduates or people who'd done it in-house for a few years at companies. So software development grads, programmers, basically IT geeks, but ALSO folk with a marketing background and, of course, copywriters - all needed at his firm.

There are industry exams to pass too, once you're actually working in agencies - I know for a fact that one I was told to mark on CVs we got was "Google AdWords" - something to do with paid ads. Coming from a print marketing background myself I don't know the details, but hopefully that should explain enough for now. Maybe someone who works in SEO can expand more?

heretolearn_2

You are undercharging terribly - I hope this is just to build up a small portfolio of clients/work and then you will go up to more professional rates.

Hammyman

mrkidd85 wrote: »

I've signed up 2 clients from people per hour. Charging them £5 an hour for 2 weeks with then the option of going to £10 (both have decided to continue).

Oh. My. God. Anyone else think they'll dump the OP once the price goes up unless they continue to work for less than national minimum wage?

Mr. Kidd, you have just made a massive thick completely unmovable rod for your own back. As a self employed lorry driver driving other peoples wagons, I was charging £12/hr 5 years ago up here in Humberside. Now doing laptop repairs and servicing I'm charging £30 an hour with enough work to keep me happy.