Biting off more than you can chew.

Nucular Arms

Hi there.

I've just started advertising my services as a freelancer and have had a great response -which is brilliant of course- but I am worried about taking on more work than I can realistically do.

Has anyone any experience of going out on your own and dealing with a large workload?

I wouldn't be in a position to sub contract the work as I am operating on a low enough margin by providing a cheaper solution than many competitors, and I also need the jobs to build my portfolio.

Any thoughts would be appreciated thanks!

Trojan

Nucular Arms wrote: »

I wouldn't be in a position to sub contract the work as I am operating on a low enough margin by providing a cheaper solution than many competitors, and I also need the jobs to build my portfolio.

I'd suggest you subcontract some of it anyway, even if your margins on that are zero, and use the time work on getting more sales in the pipeline.

Get away from being the "busy fool" by upping your margins (compete on anything but price unless you can scale massively).

Nucular Arms

Trojan wrote: »

I'd suggest you subcontract some of it anyway, even if your margins on that are zero, and use the time work on getting more sales in the pipeline.

Get away from being the "busy fool" by upping your margins (compete on anything but price unless you can scale massively).

Thanks, that's a great point. I would love to be able to! But I feel that particularly in this business (web dev / analytics) it's incredibly competitive, and that I don't yet have the portfolio to justify charging as much as I would like to.

My market is small businesses who typically don't have the spare funds to justify such a big outlay, which pans out over a fairly long time, and is difficult for them to judge in terms of effectiveness (immediately at least).

Projects are far more varied in their requirements than I would care for at the moment, which has led to a greater amount of required involvement on my part to ensure they are all given their due. I feel as if sub contracting the work out would be compromising on quality I guess in a way, and that's not something I can afford to skimp on when there are so many other avenues for a potential client to go down (fiverr etc.)

pedronomix

If your target market is SMEs and you are a one man band, you need a high quality but not high volume portfolio. You will always find a talented guy selling cheap is busy with work. You are learning that you have to put in a lot more hours to deliver quality work ( especially with the typical SME in this black art, to them, area!). You need to be able to get paid for these hours at a decent rate that sustains your business model. Doing high quality work cheap never builds a proper business model, though a certain level to build reputation/portfolio may be an acceptable market entry cost. You will be hoping to get customer referrals from these companies who are getting bargain basement prices, they will tell their contacts how cheap your pricing is!1 My advice is to set a proper headline rate and then in the short term offer discounts, reducing the level of discount over a period to zero!

The Corinthian

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Has anyone any experience of going out on your own and dealing with a large workload?

I wouldn't be in a position to sub contract the work as I am operating on a low enough margin by providing a cheaper solution than many competitors, and I also need the jobs to build my portfolio.

If you have too much work coming in at a low price, then honestly that's Gods way of telling you it's time to increase that price and let the law of supply and demand do the rest.

As for portfolio material, it really is down to quality over quantity. If you've too much work on at this stage, you have the latter - better you concentrate on the former from now on.

Nucular Arms

Thanks for your comments!

I suppose it makes sense alright. I just can't help feeling that I'm crazy to be turning away work when I've just started out but I hear your point.

I'll have to review my pricing then I suppose and let the chips fall where they may. At least if I finish my current workload to a high enough standard I should have the basis of a portfolio (and hopefully some happy customers who would recommend me!)

Thanks gain folks.

sconhome

Nucular Arms wrote: »

Thanks for your comments!

I suppose it makes sense alright. I just can't help feeling that I'm crazy to be turning away work when I've just started out but I hear your point.

I'll have to review my pricing then I suppose and let the chips fall where they may. At least if I finish my current workload to a high enough standard I should have the basis of a portfolio (and hopefully some happy customers who would recommend me!)

Thanks gain folks.

Its a tough position to be in starting out. But if you don't turn away some work you are going to be far too busy to give your full time and attention to producing quality work and retaining satisfied customers that pay.

Trojan

Raising prices is not turning away work.

Nucular Arms

That's very true! My perceptions are certainly in need of some tweaking i suppose. Thanks very much for the feedback everyone.

Im fairly sure ive just closed an excellent deal on a project after taking your advice as well so i very much appreciate the advice!