After feeling a little bit like I’ve focused on some of the more stressful parts of freelancing lately, I wanted to celebrate some absolutely brilliant things I’ve experienced lately – and one is definitely recruitment over the last few months. Some approaches have felt revolutionary and some feel so obvious it hurts –…
Author: Katherine Perrin
The Summer Productivity Challenge
In July the summer holiday stretched before us – 6 weeks of sunshine and I only had 50% of my planned working time blocked out for contract work. Perfect. I had all sorts of plans. And yet somehow pretty much spectacularly failed at them all. What happened and why didn’t the school summer…
To Pro Bono or Not?
I’ve recently been approached by an old contact congratulating me on the move to freelancing and being my own boss. She also asked about the possibility of doing some pro bono work. And it’s thrown up a few questions. Namely, is it the right thing to do? And is it the right thing…
How to find a freelancer
Naturally to be a successful freelancer, you need to be able to secure the work. I’ve been trialling a few different ways to find opportunities (more on that later) and something I’ve noticed is the huge disparity in how organisations are marketing, and outlining, their opportunities. From vague one-liners to 5+ pages of…
Finance 101
In my long list of things to learn, finance has got to be up there. I haven’t (yet) been caught out by anything in particular, it’s been hard to shake a worry that I might be, because I’ve accidentally overlooked something. The longer I do this, the easier this gets but I think…
Juggling Priorities
A critical factor of success in many roles is how well you can manage your time. Like loads of people I’ve experienced huge shifts in working patterns over the last few years, from going part time with condensed hours around the kids, to sliding scales of homeworking through the pandemic. Going freelance has…
First 90 days (foundation)
This week marked my first 90 days as a consultant. I’m counting it as foundation setting, however, rather than actual because 90% of it was while working my notice in employment and running some freelance work alongside. As the first 90 days are generally considered a key transition period into any new role,…
Lessons in Evaluation
This week I concluded a two-month long two-report impact evaluation project for an amazing charity. They provide independent advice services on areas such as benefits, immigration, debt and housing for their local community. Their community-led approach and ability to build trust with a community experiencing significant deprivation is hugely impactful (sorry, should have…
The Freelancer Club
A curiosity I’ve had since I first thought about becoming a freelancer was how many others were doing it and just how big the freelance community is. Before making the leap myself I was aware of some friends with their own businesses, either with actual companies or as sole-traders, but I wasn’t sure…
What’s In A Name?
Every business needs an identity, and it doesn’t get more fundamental than a name. A name could tell you everything, or nothing – it can be descriptive, cryptic, creative or fun, but every business needs a name. So when you start out creating your very own business – what on earth do you…