Freelancing. The smartest Way to be free and highly Paid

Chapter 2
What You Can Do Outside The Office?

On a freelance, you can do any kind of mental work.

The cook cannot work as a freelancer while in sunny Thai. This is work at the stove or with a knife in your hands.

Personal, physical presence is necessary. However, if the cook is an expert in Russian or Mediterranean cuisine, he can consult, record an online course, create a mailing list with recipes. And this is mental work. And if you create it in English or ask another freelancer to translate it, then other chefs around the world may become his clients.

Here the chapter may be finished… but!

Want more details?

Then let’s get deeper in the situation. Who will find it easier to switch to freelancing, and who will have additional tasks to be resolved?

The light option. The easiest and logical one

Let’s assume you are currently working in the company as a designer / recruiter / SMM specialist / accountant / trainer. You can continue the list yourself.

Fill out your job here ____________________.

And make an agreement with your employer that you will no longer work in the staff. Now you work for yourself, continuing to perform the previously agreed functions. Not all employers will accept this, but I’m sure more than half will. After all, the advantages for them are obvious.

They are confident in your efficiency: you have already worked for them. They start saving money on your salary. They free up workspaces and save on rent. They pay for the result of your work, not for the fact that you come to the office.

What’s your benefit?

You continue to do clear and familiar work. You have income. You have something to present to future customers. When you say that you left the company, and still continue to work for them, this is a great indicator that you satisfied your employer, and this adds points to you and gives confidence in your competence and respect to you to your future employer. I personally know such examples among HR specialists, book and magazine layout specialists, internal coaches, Internet marketers. This is an easy start for professionals with an income of up to 1.5 thousand dollars.

If your experience is insufficient and your income is still less than 1 thousand dollars, then the employer will question your competence.

And you may have to start taking small orders, slowly building up both experience and customer database.

Another situation is if you are a top manager, a manager with an income of more than 10 thousand dollars.

I know examples when top managers would leave a company but continued to work with former employers as consultants. In my practice such examples took place with HR directors, sales and marketing directors, financial directors, chief technologists, and digital marketing directors.

Cooperation of this kind can usually last 3–6 months. During this time, you need to find other customers. You do not perform routine tasks, you are involved in fundamental, important business challenges, the cost of which can go into millions. And your income from the project can reach the tens of thousands dollars. That is even higher than you received as an employee. There are also limitations. Such projects usually require personal presence. This doesn’t mean that your customers are only in your city. If you live in Moscow, your customers may be in Saint Petersburg, London, Paris, Nur-Sultan. If you can reach the customer within a few hours or a train or by plane, then there is no problem. It is unlikely that customers will be located on other continents. Although if you have special expertise, it may be customers from Silicon Valley and China.

The specialists of this grade are not usually called freelancers, but in fact they are. You work for yourself, performing consulting services for customers. Usually people like you are called business consultants. I am also a business consultant. This is one of my roles. My most frequent tasks in this role are to assess employees of the HR Department, conduct an audit of selection process, to help formulate and form the employer’s brand, write selling, attractive ad texts about vacancies, conduct training of the personnel of HR department. And also other orders, related to personnel management. I don’t have any orders connected with finance or sales. But my expertise in HR is more than 21 years.

Classic freelancers were given non-core jobs in terms of the main business. As I have given examples, we gave the design to freelancers. Now the situation has changed.

For example, digital marketing agencies can perfectly sell their services, and redistribute their performance between freelancers. And even the project management process can be outsourced. My friend Margarita, while at home on maternity leave, at the same time, would led 5–6 projects in the digital sphere as a project manager, managing other freelancers. And she earned more than 8 thousand dollars a month. If she was in the staff for one only company, her revenue would be about $25003500. In other words, the business process and core business value are changing. The company becomes not a possessor of marketing competencies, but an excellent sales expert, and the matters paid the customers are outsourced. And this is also what is changing the business landscape and the labor market. Losing key expertise may be dangerous for business. However, the profit may be higher. There are classic examples that are decades old. For example, the world-famous McDonald’s. Its main business is real estate with fast food restaurants inside, not the restaurants themselves. It earns money from franchisees.

Let’s structure it.

Freelancing is possible for both legal entities and individuals.

Let’s start with individuals. What services can you offer them?

I will also give personal examples. And you for sure will remember yours.

The repair. Of any kind

repairs in the apartment, repair of electrics, plumbing, installation of doors, wallpapering. I once tried to do some plumbing in the bathroom. I have spent a lot of time, first having to go to the store for the right fittings, then unscrewing the mixer without having the right tools. Finally, I got it assembled and installed. But something went crooked. And I called a plumber. Everything was done in 15 minutes and perfectly. Why did I spend 3 hours?

Here goes also repair of household appliances, computers, electronics. My children constantly break the screens of phones and iPads. Fortunately, iPhones are being repaired in the shop in the next building. More precisely, there were a shop for several years. Now it’s closed. And the phones are still broken regularly. If I knew the right repairman who could come along with the right parts and fix it, this would be great. Or at least he would pick it up, repair it, and bring it back.

Then comes clothes repair and tailoring. You can come to pick up things that need repair, take measurements and do the work at home.

I ordered a tuxedo from such a freelancer. For this I had to go somewhere in the end of nowhere. If the tailor would come to my house to take measurements and for fitting, then I definitely would have recommended it to my friends.

Room cleaning, washing, ironing, taking clothes to the dry cleaners… I have a housekeeper. She comes every Monday. I generally don’t think about washing or ironing anything. This is convenient.

Cooking

My friend Ulyana makes Sunday dinners for families. Menu is agreed in advance. She buys the necessary products herself, checks what kind of cooking inventory is available, and if necessary, brings them her own. It costs starting from 150 dollars for a family. Maybe it’s not cheap, but you will get an exclusive dinner in a beautiful home environment, and it will be cheaper than in a restaurant. Your relatives will remember this for sure. And Yes, to get to this level, she studied abroad with Italian and French famous chefs. If she goes to another country, anywhere in the world there will be those who wants to get such a service. And surprisingly, she found the power to change the career track. We’ve known each other for 20 years. Back then, she was a human resources manager. Then rose to HR director. Found herself a favorite hobby. And made a business out of the hobby.

I have heard about an online school for baking cakes, which brings its creator more than 3 million rubles a month. I had a job position of a pastry chef once. While working on the it, I met the most famous and renown pastry chefs from the countries. None of them came up with the idea of making such a school.

And none of them makes $40,000 a month.

Body care, health and beauty

The manicure. My friend Margarita works as a lawyer in the labor inspectorate. Salary in the civil service for a specialist is not big at all. Margarita took manicure and design courses, then ordered supplies from a wholesaler and become interested in modern trends in nail design. Her handmade and exclusive work with your fingers costs from $50 to $150.

In about 2 hours. She gets more money from five clients a month, than at the main job. And you have to register in advance to get your nails done. Before holidays and special dates like February 14th, Halloween, Christmas, March 8th, she takes a day off at her own expense, because there are too many orders for nails. Girls like to be special at parties, and they are waiting in line to get to Marguerite’s and get shiny for a party or date.

When I was a student in the ‘ 90s, I did my haircut from at home. Actually, I lived in a dorm. Not because I didn’t have time to go to the barber shop. Students have plenty of time. Simply it was cheaper for me than going to the salon. I was saving, and my friend Natalia, who has been trained and worked for several months in a beauty salon, received more income than she would get for the same service as an employee.

The masseur. This is also a high-paying job. The session can cost from $50 to $100. The masseur would come to my house with her special massage table 2 times a week.

And it is not expensive to take massage courses. If you don’t want to go far, you can organize an office in your apartment and invite people who live within walking distance.

Clothing stylist. He comes to your house, asks questions about your events, meetings, and goals. After that, he determines your dress code, looks at what you have, and creates images from what is available, recommends what you need to buy. And maybe help you with shopping. I used these services and was happy with it. Even shocked. Found out how little of business clothes I have, despite the fact that I have 20 years of entrepreneurial experience. The cost may vary from $50 to $300 per hour. No supplies or additional costs from the stylist. Only time is paid. To obtain this skill you won’t spend much time. This is not thermodynamics.

All over the world, before the wedding a make-up artist and a hair stylist come to the bride’s house.

This is a common practice. Such services are quite expensive.

A freelancer gets, in fact, an order for one time. When else this girl is going to get married? Maybe in a few years, maybe never. At the same time, you can immediately offer a discount on styling, for example, for celebrating or a wedding anniversary, for a meeting from the maternity ward, for other special dates. The client can become yours for life.

Work with children

Parents always need help. Help to sit with children, teach them school subjects, take them to hobby groups.

I have 5 children. The eldest, Sofia and Dinara, are studying at a university. And the younger ones are 6 (Elisey), 9 (Rose-Belle) and 11 (Ramil Khan) years old. They have two nannies, because one does not manage to handle a big number of events and activities.

Additionally, they are engaged in speech therapy (it is clear that he’s a freelancer). Children are homeschooled. And freelancers teach them via Skype.

When we lived in Bali (it lasted 3 years) and the children were studying at the international “Green School”, we had an Indonesian nanny named Made, whose day would begin with cooking breakfast for the children and end with putting the children to bed. In fact, she was busy with cleaning, cooking, purchasing food, accompanying children to the beach around the clock. And she’s a freelancer, But currently working for one customer. When we left the island, she got other parents as clients.

Recently, during an interview with some head of a HR Department, I learned that the candidate has additional earnings, teaching English to an elementary school children. I asked a question.

“Tatiana, are you fluent in English?”

“No. I will not be able to conduct a meeting or negotiations in English. But my level is enough to teach children the basics.”

To be honest, I was outraged and surprised for half a day, and I thought that what she was doing was unethical and deceptive. In the evening, I calmed down, arranged my thoughts and said to myself: yes, she might do this.

Tatiana can give children the basics. This is what they need now. In the evenings, after the main work. And it adds about 30 % to her salary in the main place. She’s good.

When I entered a university in 1993, the only tutor who helped me was a German teacher who worked at the same university where I entered. What for? I don’t know. Before I was one of the best German students in school and a prize-winner of the national Olympiads in German. Why parents insisted on individual work with a freelancer teacher?

There are two reasons.

1. They didn’t know how good my German really was to pass the exam. In addition, l studied English myself, with a teach-yourself book. And I haven’t just got the highest grade in German at my business entrance exam;

I also spoke to the examiners in English. When I entered Novosibirsk state technical University, I also started studying French.

2. This was reinsurance. Confidence, that everything possible has been done. And you can use it as a freelancer. Show the potential customer that working with you will eliminate problems.

Here is an example of 2020. An entrepreneur from Siberia requested me to look through view the responses for the vacancy ad they have placed. He has been in business for 10 years. I’m in recruitment more than 20 years. He knew I had a better understanding of the labor market and had known what to look for in a resume. There were more than 230 responses to their vacancy for the position of commercial director. It was important to him, that I personally studied each resume, did not miss strong candidates, and gave advice on who exactly to meet. I did the job. I identified the top 10 most relevant, 25 possible for communication and all the others who don’t fit the job. I called him, and together we discussed the 10 most interesting candidates. He agreed with me 100 %. We didn’t even discuss the second and third groups of candidates. I’m sure he would have made the same decision without me. Sometimes the consultant’s job is to confirm their decisions with an authoritative opinion.

I got $800 for an hour and a half of work. Am I not a good boy? The payment came to my legal entity’s account. After deducting taxes, less than 70 % remained. But if I was self-employed, so only 6 % of the transaction would have come on taxes.

Think about who you can be an authoritative expert for.

Write at least 5 points.

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