In this blog, Kim Ellis looks at why so many freelancers end up working like employees, and how we often enable it without realising. Drawing on nine years of self-employment, she explores what it’s really costing you and shares practical, no-fuss ways to set expectations with clients.
In Nicola Bedford’s Q&A with a VA, she said something that’s stuck with me:
‘I’m not an employee, I don’t work for you, I work with you.’
I’d never really thought about it like that before. For me, the line between my work and my clients’ work has always been pretty clear, and any time I’ve done a bit extra, that’s been me choosing to volunteer my time because I believed in the cause or the client.
But when someone commissions a freelancer, they’re paying for a service to be delivered. They’re not paying for someone to be at their beck and call 24/7, answering emails at all hours or going above and beyond with little warning and no extra money.
There’s a difference between being a freelancer and an employee too. An employer gets to decide how, when and where you do your work. A client is buying a result. They get a say in the what, but the how and the when are usually yours to manage, as long as you deliver what you’ve agreed for the deadline. That’s part of what they’re paying for… someone who knows what they’re doing and can crack on without being micro-managed.
So where does it go wrong?
I’ll be honest, in nine years I’ve been really lucky. Some of my gigs haven’t even had a contract, it’s been more of a verbal agreement. And when scope has crept, it’s not really been an issue. Like I said… lucky.
I’m not here to have a moan about scope creep or needy clients, though. I actually want to look at our side of it, because sometimes we’re part of the problem… or rather, we enable it.
Unless they’ve worked with a bunch of freelancers before, clients don’t really know how we work. It’s fairly safe to assume they think they’re our only client, and that every moment we’re not working on their stuff, we’re sat twiddling our thumbs… or going to brunch.
But even if they are our only client, we’ve still got our own stuff to do. Marketing, networking, business development, admin and everything else that’s on a never-ending to-do list.
I’ve never been one to sugar-coat freelancing. Yes, it’s a great life and it suits me, but it can also be hard, and it’s a lot of work. You’re the copywriter, tech support, marketer, assistant and receptionist… basically every role you took for granted when you were employed now sits with you. At least until you’re earning enough to bring in a VA or some other help.
So why do we do it? I think a lot of it comes from a good place. We want to be helpful, we want the client to be happy, and we want them to come back. There’s often a bit of fear in there too, especially early on, that if we don’t reply straight away or say yes to the extra bit, they’ll go elsewhere. And if you’ve spent years employed, some of those habits are hard to break (anyone else still guilty of checking emails on their day off?).
The trouble is, every time we say yes without thinking, we’re teaching the client that’s how we work. And that’s really hard to undo later.
You also need to think about what it’s doing to your rate. Think about how hard you worked to negotiate your fee in the first place… all that back and forth, justifying your day rate or project fee, holding your nerve when they tried to knock it down. Then every extra hour you put in, every “quick” extra deliverable, every evening spent replying to emails, just chips away at it.
Say you’ve quoted three days for a piece of work at £600 a day. That’s £1,800. If it ends up taking you six days, you’re now working for £300 a day. Would you have said yes to that if they’d offered it upfront? Probably not.
And it’s not just the money. Those extra days have to come from somewhere, usually the time you’d set aside for marketing, business development or another client (or your evenings and weekends).
So how do we (softly) educate people?
Most of the time we’ll agree terms at the start of a piece of work, usually in a contract, setting out the deliverables and deadlines. Next time you’re putting one together, add in when you’re actually contactable too. Otherwise, don’t be surprised when an email lands at 7pm on a Friday with a reply expected by Monday morning.
A few other things that help:
- Say it early. It’s much easier to set expectations at the start than to reset them halfway through a project.
- Put it where they’ll see it. Your working hours or usual response times in your email signature is a gentle, no-fuss reminder.
- Agree what “extra” looks like. If something falls outside the brief, what happens? A quick chat, a revised quote, a change to the timeline? Deciding that upfront saves an awkward conversation later.
- Watch what you model. If you reply at 11pm, you’ve just shown them you reply at 11pm. Schedule send is your friend.
What if you’re already in it?
If you’re reading this thinking “that ship’s sailed”, it hasn’t. You can reset expectations mid-project, it just takes a slightly braver conversation. Keep it about how you work rather than about them doing anything wrong. Something like, “Just so you know, I’m usually at my desk between X and Y, and I’ll always reply within a working day.” Most people will be absolutely fine with it. And if something extra comes up, you can acknowledge it, say it’s outside what you agreed, and offer a couple of options.
Don’t feel guilty for setting your own rules… that’s why you became a freelancer in the first place.
And remember, most clients aren’t being awkward on purpose. They just don’t know, and you can educate them.
Think of it as paying it forward, so the next freelancer they work with has an easier time of it.
