Podcast Episode 16 Freelancing the Alternative Career

I had the pleasure of speaking to Dan Furman, founder of Clear Writing. Dan fell into the world of copywriting after losing his job and trying out a few different freelance options. He discovered his skill and ability as a copywriter in a very fortuitous time in the early 2000’s when there was little competition.

Dan and I spoke about the pros and cons of being a freelancer. There are many pros to being a freelancer.

You can make way more money than you could at your day job. You have the flexibility to charge whatever you want and to make whatever you can get paid. What will gradually happen over time is that as you become more established you’ll be able to be more selective in the type of work that you do.

There is more flexibility than at a traditional 9-5 job. Dan mentioned the ability to go get your oil changed at 3:00pm on a weekday afternoon. You have a great deal of scheduling flexibility so if you’re a morning person who wakes up at 3:00am then you can get your work done and be off at 11:00am.

The freedom to choose who you work with to a certain extent. After you have become established you can choose who your clients and can choose not to work with the ones that you like and fire the ones that they don’t. Most people who have had a boss or a coworker that they don’t like dealing with, imagine being able to fire that person whenever you wanted.

The cons to being a freelancer are listed below.

You’ll have to self fund your own retirement plan because you don’t have retirement plan contributions coming in from your employer. This could be a huge deal especially if you are working for a government employer or a large corporation because they could offer huge retirement incentives to work for them. If you are working for yourself entirely then you’ll have to come up with the funds yourself. The whole idea of going all in on something like this is the ability to make a lot more and save a lot more.

You have to cover your own medical expenses, if you reside in a country with national health coverage like Canada you can ignore this. This can be a huge expense upwards of $20,000 for a family plan that may have been purchased on the market place. If your spouse is working with a regular employer getting on their health insurance could save you a figurative arm and a leg in financial cost.

You can go through dry spells where there are no clients coming into the door. This can be a huge problem because you might not have any cash coming in for a little while. This can also be remedied by having some regular clients that you do work for by using a more discounted rate to ensure that you can eat something other than Alpo.

You could feel very isolated if it’s just you working at home all day. There could be days where you don’t see another human being all day. Dan put his mail box for his company at the post office, which makes him go out and see other people. If you are used to being in an office all day with other people on your team this could be hugely isolating. Honestly if you feel the need for a social outlet it might be beneficial to get a part time job to give you someone to socialize with and combat the cash flow problems of working as a freelancer.

These are just a few of the pros and cons of being a freelancer that Dan and I discussed about being a freelancer. Like a new car though I’d recommend trying before buying into going all in on being a freelancer. Dip your toe in the freelance water and work on this part time and on the side to see if this is right for you. This could stay as a part time gig for you for the long term just to make a few extra bucks or it could be something that fits you perfectly. If you give it a year or two and do it for 5-15 hours a week then this should give you enough time and cash flow to take it full time if you want to.

If you want to find out more about freelancing and copywriting then you can reach out to Dan Furman at Clear Writing.