This article is a W.I.P.

So you want to become a freelancer?

Welcome to hell, my friend!

Becoming a freelancer means you put your money where your mouth is. Huh, what money? It's the money you would earn in a full time job (cost of opportunity).

Read this first

• Breaking The Time Barrier
• Ramit Sethi: Briefcase technique

How to start

Before you show your boss the middle finger and hand in your letter of resignation, take a deep breath and re-evaluate. Remember above: Responsibility bruh!

Cutting of your main source of income is a big risk and puts a lot of pressure on you. That pressure can put you into a beggar mentality. And nobody want's to work with somebody needy for a gig.

Bad:

1. Quit your job and

Better:

1. Keep your job. Don't quit yet.
2. If necessary, wind down your hours. If you are grinding 60h per week, cut it down to 35 or less, if possible
3. Start freelancing in your free time
4. Quit your job, once your freelancing side gig earns enough to make ends meet.

Best:

1. Pitch your freelancing plans to your boss
2. Make him your first client.
3. That was fast, now you are a freelancer...

But I am just about to leave college! I don't know anything

Glad you ask!

Remember how you felt during your first days in college? You don't know anyone, you don't know what to expect. You don't know how shit works. At all.

Doesn't that sound like a pain to solve?

Your college/university is the perfect practice environment. You can make mistakes and learn from it - risk free! Well your ego might get hurt, but that's a good thing.

I just graduated and have 0 exp

Get a job! What? A JOB? But I want to freelance!

If you have 0 skills, we gotta get ya some. The best way: Get a job. See it as a temporary on-ramp for your freelancing career.

And no, I won't get into details how to get a job. But check👏out👏these👏great👏resources. (tbc soon)

Additional resources

• How to Make Selling Easy (Frank Kern Podcast)

Bonus: My Presentation from October 2017

Download Link:
https://slides.com/rene_gar/freelancers/

*Below you can find my personal notes from the presentation.

Everything I will tell you is also applicable to any fulltime job

## Old vs new mentality

Old worker mentality vs. new proactive solution oriented mentality

you literally have to reprogram your brain

become proactive

I love it when a freelancer finds an issue, fixes it or improves it by himself, I am hooked!

## Your client's #1 pain

*what's the biggest pain/problem employees your potential clients have?* 
///ask audience what they think it is.

---> that you cannot deliver and they have to start looking for a new one

client's don't want to constantly search for new freelancers.
they are happy to pay you even if you are a bit more expensive than your competition

switching to a new (even when cheaper) freelancer is a huge risk and pain in the ass.

## Migate the risk (and stand out)

bad: overpromise and underdeliver

good: underpromise and overdeliver

better: shut up, pre-deliver and overdeliver 

As a client, I wanna know that you are solution oriented

famous: google asks in their interviews: What is the best way to peel a banana?

they wanna see you rant and ramble about the problem and how you navigate towards the solution.

//refer to ramit sethi briefcase technique video

## Communication is key

biggest friction is the comm between two parties

//find graphic with communication scrambled between two ppl

you gonna be on the same page as the client. and he has to be on the same page with you.

remove any possibility of misunderstanding

a few tricks:

* no pronouns: *he*, *she*, *it*, *they*, *we*,  - <strike>they</strike> these pronouns have to go!
* surgic precision: imagine you are guiding a blindfolded brain surgeon while he is cutting up the brain of a patient. replace all genericn words with exact descriptions:
    * here
    * there
    * this
    * that
    * left
    * right
    * element
    * image


the same the other way around: often clients communicate that way. it's your job to ask him what exactly he means.

if he can't stop 

remember: your responsibility is to remove any friction which holds you back from delivering the solution. even when it's the client that is holding you back

obviously you don't remove the client, but rather identify the friction he is creating and 

and yes, at a certain point you might have do drastic measures if your client is not able to improve.

## Take responsibility

Extreme Ownership from Jocko Willink

refer to book

You worked 20h on a  and then client realizes that's the wrong 

even if it's clearly the client's fault, ask yourself what you could have done beforehand to avoid that situation.

* e.g. repeat the whole task and clarify with the client that it's correct
* ask more question about the purpose of the pdf

With The concept of extreme ownership it's almost impossible not to excell and make clients happy. it's a state of mind and can be programmed into your thinking.

-> take ownership: How could you have made sure that you 

## There are no bad results

1. you deliver, client is happy: congratz, win-win
2. you deliver, client is not happy

mentality: every job is an experiment, a test, a lesson where you learn and improved. you never finish

## Keep learning

world and tech are changing friggin fast. stuff today might become obsolete in 5 years.