On Tuesday 21st July 2020, Amelia Torode and Sera Holland, co-founders of The Fawnbrake Collective hosted an online Fawnbrake Slow. This was an interactive session designed to help take the fear out of freelance and to provide practical help and advice to those new to the freelance world.

The panel included:

Finance and Tax
Diane Pilling, Founder - Affordable Accounts Group

Promotion and New Business
Fredrik Borestorm, Head of Agency, International - LinkedIn

Practical Lessons and Learnings
Abi Freckleton, Brand Consultant
Zoe Scaman, Founder - Bodacious
Joanne Oatts, Creative

The session started with a discussion amongst Abi, Zoe and Joanne. Each of them with a different professional background and having freelanced for a variety of time. We started by asking them why each of them began freelancing, was there a trigger or a motivation to move independent?

Joanne, who is a Creative, said that it was a desire to get more variety in her professional career, to deepen and expand her learning and to avoid that “Groundhog month” feeling that she was experiencing at agencies. Abi, a Group Account Director, agreed and shared that she had left permanent employment fairly quickly after she and her fellow Grads at M&C Saatchi realised that for the amount of hours worked, they were earning less than minimum wage. Abi talked about the freedom to pick projects and timing to fit her life, not having to fit your life into someone else’s business. Zoe spoke with candour, saying that she had left her last agency after arguing with the founder but received her first offer of a freelance role that same afternoon.

All three were consistent that the best things about freelance life was the feeling of variety and empowerment, “choosing when you work, choosing what you work on.” The downsides were never knowing when or how to switch off, missing the social aspect of being a permanent part of something but these were out-weighed by the positives.

We asked each person to give one piece of advice to freelance newbies: Joanne’s advice was to always remember, “You are good enough!” She highlighted Neil Gaiman’s Commencement Speech of 2012 as something that helps to focus and inspire her. Abi’s advice was to “promote yourself” (by that she meant actually give yourself a title promotion as opposed to self-promotion), whereas Zoe’s advice was all about self-promotion and the power of your network. “Your network is everything, so get out of your comfort zone, cold email, constantly reach out.”

We then moved on to talk about personal branding, new business and self-promotion. We started with Fredrick who shared his perspective on utilising LinkedIn most effectively. He talked about a number of initiatives that LinkedIn have including Open For Business, ProFinder and the basics of profile building. From his experience it is important to remember that being on LinkedIn is like being part of a community, so be helpful and provide support and advice to your network, especially during tough times. Fredrik also underlined the importance of “becoming known for something online.” Zoe and Joanne both agreed, highlighting the importance for them of LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and blogging, Abi on the other hand is more of a “word of mouth brand,” which just demonstrates that there is not one size that fits all or one blueprint that works for people. You have to find the style and approach that works best for you, and feels most authentic to how you engage and communicate.

Our final panel discussion was “Show Me The Money” with Diane Pilling, the founder of award-winning Affordable Accounting Group. Her main advice, which was 100% supported by all the panelists, was get yourself an accountant. Find someone that you like, that you understand, understands your business and that explains finance to you in a way that works for you. There are so many changes to tax laws that having someone onside that you can pick up the phone and talk to is invaluable. The most important thing is to “make the business work for you, as opposed to the other way round.” Diane also talked about embracing technology right from the start, highlighting Xero in particular as a software platform that she seems as life-changing for sole traders or small businesses. Zoe talked about her “Quarterly Dumb Question” sessions that she swears by, she also recommended raising day rates regularly in increments of 5% which clients don’t notice but over the years really adds up financially.

We then moved onto questions from the audience which we clustered and themed: The first set was around how you “pitch” yourself when you have a multidisciplinary background and can do a number of different things. The panel’s recommendation to this was to make sure that you do “social selling”, get recommended by someone you have worked for to others helps to ensure that you are not pigeon-holed. People asked about managing workflow. For this the panel recommended being utterly honest and upfront about time commitments and building “deep work time” into the calendared part of a day. The final question was about whether it was hard working directly into clients, rather than through an agency, if you were quite an outspoken person? The panelists all felt that being a freelancer actually liberated them, that you have “more ability to tell the truth,” (Abi) and Zoe confessed, “I’m often the most difficult person in the room and I use that opportunity, you owe them nothing politically.” Joanna agreed, “I am a fresh perspective, I never feel that i am just a freelancer!”

This was the first Zoom-based Fawnbrake Slow. The overwhelming demand for tickets and the sheer number of questions towards the end, have highlighted to us quite how important this issue is. We will be exploring a number of possible additional Fawnbrake Slows over the coming months. Details will be on the Fawnbrake Collective website and on Twitter @Fawnbrake.

Read about our second event, Freelance, now what? Systems & Structures >