Restarting Operation Freelance at the time of Coronavirus
Do you feel unmotivated in your job and it is not clear why you are doing it (apart from paying the bills)? Has the bizarre idea of going freelance been in your head for a while?
The web is full of gurus who explain exactly what to do, how much money you can earn and how wonderful life suddenly becomes when you make the switch. But is it as easy as everyone makes it sound?
I want to tell you my story: after graduating in Aerospace Engineering I worked as an employee for several multinationals in the sector, first in Italy and then in Germany. Although I haven’t made a fortune, I can honestly say that money has never been a problem: I have always been lucky to have a stable and relatively well-paid job. Furthermore, I liked my job, and I was quite good at it, as well: consequently, career prospects were not lacking. So what was wrong?
I was missing the most important thing: motivation. And that meant I wasn’t happy. What were my goals? Making the boss happy in exchange for a better career, having a higher salary and working more and more until retirement? Nothing wrong if this is goes hand in hand with spending your time, the most precious thing we have, in the best possible way. It was not my case, however and things started to change.
2017: during a business trip to England I met my current partner.
2018: I found myself in hospital with what seemed like a serious health problem. Fortunately it turned out to be nothing serious, but it got me thinking about how precious time is.
2019: I decided to move to Spain, where my partner lives.
April 2020: for almost a year now I have been working as a freelancer, as far as possible online, and when not possible, traveling. In my last 4 years in Germany, I started smart-working: I managed a nice project from my office, with a virtual team divided between other cities in Germany and England, and in the end the result of the project was more than satisfactory. So I said to myself: in the 4.0 era, does the place you wokr from really matter Furthermore, I didn’t lack the necessary skills or the contacts… so the risks of starting from 0 were rather low.
But things don’t always go as we plan, no matter how well we do it. My business started well: I launched a website and created an e-learning platform and more contacts appeared quickly. The first potential customer was from India, the second from China, the third from Northern Italy … hurray! But wait, we are at the end of 2019 … I live in Spain, and my contacts are in China and Italy. What’s wrong? Now it’s April and obviously there is no need to remind you about what is happening in the world, in particular in China, Spain and Italy.
No matter how well you plan, no matter how high your motivation is, no matter how good your ideas are, and no matter how hard we work, we live in a complex and unforeseeable world. There will always be someone who knows how to do it, someone with a perfect solution in their pocket to offer, someone who “went through it already and can tell you how to do it”, but the truth is that there is no exact fomula. Good knowledge, a good business plan, good readings are not enough, the truth is that “the map is not the territory”: the territory hides pitfalls that the map does not signal, and therefore it is up to us to face the unexpected in the best way possible, and learn from it.
So, what are the lessons learned in this year as a freelance? Below is a short list for those wishing to start on this exciting adventure:
- plan, plan, plan: define your goals, manage risks, define the budget you need, at least for the next 3 years. Most of the new activities are not profitable for more or less the same period (but obviously it depends on each case);
- before starting, save enough to live on, considering the worst-case scenario of your business not working out at all;
- use your strengths: competition is fierce, especially where you don’t feel strong;
- become a digital marketing expert: you can have the best product in the world, but if you are unable to sell it, all efforts will be in vain;
- start with an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), it doesn’t have to be perfect, but good enough to be launched on the market;
- use feedback from clients to improve services: it is the best way to listen to “the voice of customers”;
- if it doesn’t work, be ready to pivot: change strategy, product, service;
- monitor your business with real data and create metrics that make sense: how many visitors on the site, how many sales per user, and so on;
- strengthen your weaknesses: a chain is as strong as its weakest link is;
- Be resilient: things will not always go well, especially the first year, but this does not mean that you are not offering something valid … hold on to your idea!
I hope these 10 tips will be useful to those who, like me, have decided to make such a radical change in their lives. It is not possible to have everything under control. There are events outside our sphere of influence with which we must live and on which it does not make sense to spend precious energy. The changes are never definitive, it is up to us to decide when and how much we are willing to risk to improve our lives. In any case, we will learn from lessons that otherwise we will never have had, so my advice is … throw yourself in the fray, leave your comfort zone, take risks and do not get down when faces with your first difficulties … in any case it will be a success!
