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The 2023 edition of British IPSE Self-Employed Landscape Report reveals that professionals aged 50-59 represent the largest and fastest-growing age group among UK freelancers, with almost 1.2 million people, marking a seven percent increase from the previous year.
Research indicates that older professionals are increasingly turning to freelancing as their best option. This shift is supported by a confidence in their self-starting capabilities, increasing longevity of self-employed businesses and readiness for freelance work, highlighting a significant transformation in the sector's skill profile and pointing towards a broader reevaluation of employment and self-employment dynamics among experienced professionals.
You can read more findings from the report here.
Here’s the newest English interview on freelance business with Robert Vlach hosted by Georgi Nenov and The Superhuman Podcast during Robert’s December 2023 book tour in Sofia, organized by Locus Publishing.
Rory Sutherland, in this albeit older but still very relevant and excellent TED Talk, discusses the importance of psychology in life, marketing, and business. Sutherland, who is, among other things, the author of the successful book Alchemy, talks about the powerful role of perception and framing in influencing human satisfaction and decision-making.
"The power to rebrand things—to understand that our experiences, costs, things don't actually much depend on what they really are, but on how we view them—I genuinely think can't be overstated."
If you work as a freelance translator, Jeremy Klemin's article in The Atlantic might catch your interest. It explores AI's role in book translation and its impact on professionals, highlighting a rising trend among some European publishers towards post-editing (PE)—where humans refine machine-generated translations. While this approach speeds up the process and cuts costs, Klemin notes it may also lead to less creativity and more uniform outputs.
California sets the tone with the Freelance Worker Protection Act. Senator Scott Wiener introduced Senate Bill 988 to protect the growing number of freelancers in California, offering key protections. According to The Freelance Informer, the key points are:
Although the law has not yet been enacted, its proposed provisions offer significant benefits and, if successful, may inspire legislators in other parts of the world, with implications for the global freelance market.
In this new article, which is the third part of a series on Boss Mindset, Sarah Duran discusses the contrast between traditional employment and the independence of freelancers; she emphasizes the importance of self-driven professional development for freelancers, encouraging us to see our skills as an asset we control.
"Clients are not looking for an employee that they have to tell what to do, train, and manage along the way. Clients are looking for top-tier experts who understand precisely what they need and then independently execute."
Sarah highlights how we as freelancers must manage our brand, market our skills, and actively seek growth opportunities. The entrepreneurial approach not only demands continuous learning and adaptation from us but also involves refining our focus on what we do best over time. By evolving client relationships, saying no to unfit projects, and delegating or outsourcing when necessary, we can enhance our value proposition, solve more significant problems for clients, and achieve personal and financial growth.
As a freelancer, how do you choose your niche? And do you actually need it? In his article, Matthew Fenton discusses the benefits of focusing on a specific market segment for freelancers and consultants. He highlights the potential pitfalls of not choosing a niche and provides practical advice on identifying and embracing one, stressing the importance of specialization in a crowded market.
"A niche is a subset of a larger market that is characterized by unique identity, needs or preferences. It’s not more complicated than that. As a one-person operation, you can increase your odds of success by focusing on a specific niche that can sustain your business and position you as an authority."
Matthew illustrates the impact of niche selection on business success by contrasting the experiences of two fictional characters. He further delves into the advantages of niche selection, including the ability to charge higher rates, create a more targeted marketing strategy, and establish oneself as an expert in a specific field.
Geek alert! Tom Baranek designed an innovative Roam Research extension for better daily time-management. His Nautilus has already been approved on Roam Depot.
As Tom explains, Nautilus is an extension for stress-free task planning, visually representing tasks and calendar events in the Roam Daily Page. This flexible tool uses the present moment as a threshold to dynamically push unfinished tasks into the available time until tonight while keeping them in a user-defined order with user-estimated durations. Without AI.
"This visual approach reduces the feeling of being overwhelmed, enhances task-effort estimating skills, and clearly shows what the feasible tasks are for the rest of the day."
To better understand how it works, you can also watch the video tutorial.
Shoji Morimoto is a Japanese man who turned 'doing nothing' into a very original profession. As a rental person, he gets hired just to be present without engaging in any significant activity, providing clients with a sense of comfort. Can it work? Well, since he began his service in 2018, he has been hired more than 4,000 times.
"The client wants to do something, and I just go along. No deep commitment is expected and no personality required," Morimoto says and adds that he believes the job is a great fit for his introverted personality.
This quirky yet intriguing idea highlights the diverse and sometimes unexpected opportunities in the freelancing world and could be a reminder of how creativity can shape the freelancing career. You can read more about his atypical professional journey in the recently published book Rental Person Who Does Nothing.
Navigating the freelance world can be tricky, especially when it comes to clients. An article by writer and brand consultant Austin L. Church outlines the 3 Types of Freelance Clients You Don’t Want to help identify and avoid potentially problematic ones. These include:
Each type comes with its own set of challenges, from changing ingrained beliefs to dealing with negotiation tactics. In this article, Church presents some effective strategies for dealing with such clients.
"To win a loyal client who will keep sending you projects takes the same effort as winning one that will leave after the first project. The trick is knowing one from the other."