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Why I Love This

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Today I saw an interesting tweet about winning an iPod Nano. No it wasn't the Nano that grabbed my attention, it was the "Are you a freelancer?" question. Being a freelancer is something thats new to me, but it also something that I'm very proud of. I'm sure you've heard countless stories about people quitting their day job and escaping the 9 to 5 to enjoy more time with their families and activities that are more enjoyable. Well, I don't have the same story. Actually, not even close.

I actually left my "Day Job" because I wanted to do more. Sounds crazy doesn't it? The truth of the matter was that I worked for a large company that had great benefits, wonderful teammates, and a flexible schedule where I worked from home. Surely you think I'm crazy for leaving, and I trust me I questioned myself many times, but the burning desire to do more was always there.

Now to say I wanted to do more doesn't mean I wanted to start picking up everybody else job at work. What I meant by that statement is that I wanted to work with clients that either needed a website or wanted their website to do more. So, I started doing little side projects for friends and family and eventually started to get calls from local businesses. Eventually I started to want to work on my side business more than my mortgage earning job. The desire to "go to work" just wasn't there anymore. In fact, working with my own customers didn't seem like work, it was exciting to produce something that they wanted and I was getting paid for it. After some consideration, I decided to take a run at it and get larger clients which would help me sustain the lifestyle my current job was providing.

If I told you I wasn't worried about leaving the comfortable life of big company paychecks, I would be lying to you. To make matters a little more frighting, my wife was just as worried. Although I had all the support in the world, I still had three other mouths to feed and only 6 months of backup to depend on. I really needed to make this work if I was going to go for it. My first instinct was to just worry about getting new clients. In sales they call it a backlog, in my world I called it a meal, mortgage payment and car payment. However, with the added stress and unknown ahead of me, I still had the excitement of owning my own business. So I went for it!

To make a long story short, I really LOVE BEING MY OWN BOSS. There have been tough times, slow times and extremely busy times. It has been tremendously satisfying and well worth the extra hours. Am I a millionaire? NO. Do I work the same amount of hours? NO, I probably work some more. Would I change things? Absolutely Not! When I'm asked by some of the contractors I work with how I keep my sanity I try to explain to them that sometimes it's worth it to get help in the places that you don't want to be involved in. For example, in the beginning I was in charge of EVERYTHING. That means customer contact, follow up, design, development, project management, invoicing, deposits, collections, etc... You get the picture, one man shops can become a nightmare very quickly. Which is why reading the tweet I mentioned in the beginning was so interesting to me.

MBO Partners, will take care of a lot headaches for you. A service like this, especially when your in the business of satisfying customers and not running a front office can be indispensable. Also, it's a great idea to get help in the areas that you need them. I'm a developer and designer, I'm not an accountant or tax attorney, being able to ask someone else for advice is very important. Having someone else do the administrative stuff for you, can save you a lot of time, and free up more time to bill a client. Remember at the end of the day it's all about what you can deliver to the client. Your clients could care less if you invoice them, they do care about your deliverable and making sure their needs are met.

If your thinking about becoming a freelancer or are one and need more release yourself from front office nightmares, trying giving MBO a try. Trust me having some help will result in you LOVING FREELANCING even more than you did before.

So why do I love freelancing? I love it because I control my destiny. I get to set my own expectations and work the way that I'm most comfortable. I don't ever have to be put in a situation that I personally don't want to be a part of. I work on things that I want and get to challenge myself in ways I never thought were possible before. I get to talk to customers again and solve real world problems instead of hanging on to 25 year old processes that were put in place before the web was a reality. I get to be innovative and excited about new solutions to old problems. Most importantly, I love being happy about waking up each day and facing something new. It's not always easy and I have my fair share of problems, but at least it's all mine and I can deal with it in a manner that I see fitting.

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