Freelancers are suffering a recession-linked double-whammy – not only are clients and customers cutting budgets, but the newly unemployed are swelling the ranks of the self-employed, and driving fees downward.
This New York Time article (found via the Copywriter Maven) looks at the recession’s effect on the self-employed (and under-employed), and touches on an often-overlooked emotional side-effect (we’ll get to that later). First, the numbers:
Recession Takes a Toll on Freelance Livelihoods – NYTimes.com
The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks the number of self-employed workers who say they are working “part time for economic reasons,” which means that they work fewer than 35 hours a week because they can’t line up more employment. In March 2008, 622,000 self-employed workers across the country put themselves in this category. A year later, the number had almost doubled, to nearly 1.1 million. “What you can see in this data spells real trouble for these people,” says Susan Houseman, a senior economist for the Upjohn Institute, a nonprofit research center.
OK, the numbers are terrible, but they only tell a piece of the story. There’s an emotional toll that doesn’t get a column in the unemployment statistics:
That trouble is about not paying bills. It’s also about the vertigo of falling out of the middle class. “We talk about it as middle-class poverty,” said Sara Horowitz, founder and executive director of the Freelancers Union, which has 70,000 members in New York City. “Your frame of reference, when you think of yourself as middle class, doesn’t include being scared about making ends meet, realizing that welfare and food stamps are your only option. Psychologically, that shift is devastating.”
Interestingly, the researcher also noted the different responses between those who lost jobs and freelancers who lost clients – an observation which will resonate with many freelancers:
Venkatesh sees a difference in how freelancers talk about the recession compared with workers who have been laid off. “They’re more alone, and they can’t help but feel like they did something wrong because they’re losing relationships with individual clients,” he says. “They think of themselves as ministering to their clients, so they also feel guilty about no longer helping them.”
It’s natural to develop relationships with regular clients – especially if you’re working hard, getting good feedback, and functioning as part of the team.
It’s easy to forget it’s a business relationship.
And when the client stops calling, it’s just as easy to blame yourself.
Don’t do it.
Sure – take a hard look at your business with an eye to making yourself more relevant. Are you offering the right services in a fast-changing marketing landscape?
But never forget this is business – and even the best agencies lose accounts, often for reasons far outside their control.
Add free-falling, recessionary marketing budgets into the mix, and suddenly, a certain amount of client loss can only be expected.
Do what you can to contain the damage. Beef up your service offerings. But don’t personalize the loss. Things happen, and getting depressed about it simply limits your ability to dust yourself off and find a new client – or develop a new offering.
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
Comments 8
You’re right about underscoring the business in the relationship of vendor/client. Whatever it is we do as freelancers, solopreneurs or whatever, we need to remember we’re running a business, even if it’s micro-sized. Meaning sometimes we must do what we must, rather than what we love sometimes – and be hard-nosed about it.
I have a picture in my mind of one of the freelancers featured in the article. She’s applying for food stamps, but still has her IPhone.
!!!
Roberta Rosenberg’s last blog post..Spam Funnies: If you gave a gold fish a bigger instrument …
You’re dead on with this topic. Business is business and freelancers need to remember this more than other businesses.
The market was flooded quite a few years back in the training industry and everyone’s daily rate per participant plummeted. It’s a weeding out process and also highlights why we all need to work on those “multiple sources” of income.
Elizebeth’s last blog post..The Nitty Gritty of Running a Freelance Business: 19 Posts You Need to Read
That contrast caught my eye too, though I wonder if it isn’t some kind of grouchy person holdover we share from the days when cell phones were toys of the high-powered biz exec – not the working stiff.
That’s certainly been true of the writing field, though it’s been at least a decade, and I think there are now more writers looking to make a buck than ever before.
That’s why my recurring call for readers to become the Value-added Copywriter – a phrase that’s hopelessly unhip in today’s media landscape, but an idea which can’t be ignored given the oversupply of work jockeys.
@Tom, true, maybe I am grouchy. But having spent several hours reviewing cell plans, I found a very nice one for lots less than an IPhone. I think we’re always playing off – what do I need vs what do I want – to run my biz and my life. I find it surprising she needs an IPhone rather than a less expensive alternative. Of course, I don’t know what else she has already eliminated.
Roberta Rosenberg’s last blog post..Spam Funnies: If you gave a gold fish a bigger instrument …
True. My wife and I were looking at our “communications” expenses (phones, broadband, wireless, satellite) and realized just how much it’s all costing.
And yes, I think the iPhone was a poignant way to illustrate the “fall from the middle class” element of the story. It’s an icon.
The thing is, when you become unemployed you have people sympathizing with you because they know you’re out of work. When you’ve been working for yourself, i.e., freelancing, it’s invisible. People don’t realize that you’re hurting unless you tell them. Then if you talk too much about it, you feel like a whiner. And if you’re a PR/marketer, then you worry about giving the impression that, “Well, if she can’t market her own business, how could she help me market mine?”
So you try to keep your mouth closed while declining lunch/dinner invitations with friends and trying not to look rude. And you spend 90% of your time chasing work — writing proposals that get turned down because the formerly interested potential client can’t afford it, or doing more networking, social media, blogging, or speaking, hoping to drum up some biz. It’s really, really hard.
You’re certainly touching on some of the differences between freelancers and the “regular” unemployed touched on in the article.
There are perception differences between the two groups, and later in the article, they do explore the support system that exists for those who lose “regular” jobs, and how they’re supported (unemployment, job training programs, etc) while freelancers exist largely outside the system.
The dreaded “niche” word comes to mind as a strategy for maintaining value in one’s work in these recessionary times. As Henry Ford reputedly said: “A man who stops advertising to save money is like a man who stops a clock to save time”
Russell Cavanagh´s last blog ..Work makes free
Posted 12 Aug 2009 at 3:01 pm (Quote) ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 1
[...] marketer, consultant Love -Copywriting news, trends, humor … and Tom Chandler Read – “The Numbers Aren’t Pretty … ” by T. [...]
Post a Comment