But i think one of the reasons you want to become a freelancer is so that you have a degree of freedom and that its a lifestyle choice, and being available to and answering every call when ever its made does not fit into why i would want to be a freelancers, your still just a slave, I prefer the philosophy of the 4 hours work week, choose your clients don’t let them choose you.

I agree that clients need to be set boundaries and that if they want to wake me up at an ungodly hour or do 500 revisions to what should have been a simple project then they must know that they must PAY…

Because big clients have big budgets and who says that freelancers can’t get a piece of that pie? I know for a fact that if I got even a tiny sliver of the budget big corporates give large agencies for work then I would be pretty damn wealthy…

I think freelance work comes out better because it all on you its your art not that of an agency.

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You spend a lot more time communicating as a freelancer I think, as usually you are solely responsible for most aspects of the project.

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I think that the customer service part is very true, big agencies sell themselves on the fact that they are so huge and there is more than one person working on your project, but you have one account contact, and in my experience when that one contact goes on holiday no-one else there seems to know what is going on – leaving your project on hold until the contact returns.

If you want to attract bigger clients then customer service is a huge selling point. But as Mirko mentions do you want bigger clients? That could be a blog post all on it’s own…..

On the other hand, if you can provide that, I can understand why your service would seem so attractive to potential clients of any size.

Just wouldn’t want to be in your shoes when a client from another timezone rings you at 4 in the morning wanting you to resize some text or adjust the layout.

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I can understand Mirko’s attitude to big companies, but getting those big names in your portfolio shows others that you can handle the larger jobs and beat the big studios. In the long run you will get more enquiries, many from smaller companies. So the odd big job can improve the flow of smaller ones meaning you get to do the work you prefer most of the time.
Also, if you are looking for a permanent position after some time self-employed, those larger projects will help immensely.

In the last year I’ve begun to encourage designers not to refer to themselves as “freelancers” because of the “free” portion of that title. I’ve become an advocate of referring to oneself as “self-employed” or “independent.”

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I agree with you and Jacob’s previous thoughts about Spec Jobs, or “200-dollars-work” as you called them. If you start doing that, it will be hard to get big and well paid jobs.

Consequently your article was extremely good and right on target. Good work!

I want to promote my own site – close to this topic – Mypitch.com.

Yes, it is a advertising contest site like many others, but instead of 200 dollars,good ideas will get between 3,000 and 5,000 euros. A lot more money.

We love talent people and belief not everyone work on the big agencies. And maybe it’s hard to find clients out there.

Why not take a look at Mypitch.com? We want you, our well-known clients want you and maybe you need us…

Send me an email, rikard.wiberg@mypitch.com, if you have any questions.

ADVERTISING MESSAGE OVER

bye. Rikard

The best result of all this is that you not only have a chance to gain that first job from the client but you have a greater chance of scoring their 40th job.

Thanks for this!

The way I look at it – If you want me to be available to you at any time, then no problem; but you better expect to pay for it!