I’ve been lucky enough to secure my first contract, and while that’s incredible news, its launched me a bit quicker than I’d planned into the reality of “how do I actually do this?!” And here’s the thing – I don’t actually know. I’ve never been self-employed, and my husband does a whole different kind of self-employment as a regulated professional so isn’t an obvious parallel.

I don’t know about you, but if in doubt, my brain wants to make a list. And this feels like a serious case of “I have no clue what I’m doing!!” So to stem the rising panic about failing before I’d even started, I grabbed a pad and started with whatever my brain could give me.

Here’s the first go:

  • Laptop – our old family laptop was getting more temperamental as every week goes by, its touchpad stopped working I can’t remember when and its start up for every use has gone from “a quick look at BBC headlines” to “I’ll do 30 minutes of emails on my phone while it thinks about another update/restart”. Oh and its Windows 2010, which is really starting to show its age, especially when you compare it to the most recent work-issued laptop I’ve had in my job.
    An expense I really don’t want to make so early on, but for the efficiency in working and the increase in confidence, I’ve decided to make the jump. Refurbished though, to ease my conscious about such an early splurge.

  • Microsoft 365 – similar to above, with a newer laptop I decided to go for a standard business package and get the downloaded programs rather than just the apps. Another monthly expense but this is a massive help in my confidence of using something I know to start me off.

  • Name – what on earth am I going to call this/it/me? Shall I keep using my name or go for something different? Am I enough as a brand, or is more professional to have a company name?

  • Day rate – critical but so complicated, not to mention awkward. How do I start trying to work out what I need/what the market will pay?!

  • Website – anything that’s anything has a website these days. I don’t even trust a local takeaway if it hasn’t got a website so that got an early entry to the list

  • Tax/ national insurance/ pension – these feel huge and I have no idea where to start, other than appreciating that they’ll now be my responsibility. Giant question mark

  • Contract – or at least some kind of formalities in terms of locking organisations into the commitment to pay, as well as giving them some reassurance that I’m reputable. However, see previous. In the same way I’m not an accountant or financial advisor, I’m also not a lawyer. Make that two giant question marks

So, overall that’s seven things on my to list. While some are straightforward and some I have absolutely no clue about, at least seven isn’t so bad. Seven feels manageable. Seven isn’t completely keeping me up at night with terror brewing in my stomach.

However. A combination of some lovely individuals sharing theirs, Google, and thinking through my expectations for the work gave me the basis of a contract (a post for another day – have strong coffee ready. Mine took me at least 6 gins) = amazing. But it also meant my to-do list increased exponentially. And my fear level. It was a rocky weekend. So I’m now adding on:

  • Better basic legal understanding – the whole thing of creating a contract highlighted how little I knew and it feels dangerous to use something you don’t fully understand as your insurance policy for if things go wrong

  • Data security/policies/protocols – a number of contracts I looked at at least referenced how they handle/use/store data. Which not only meant did it hit my to-do list as an aspect of the contract I needed to make, but I also needed to think through the practicalities of handling another person/organisation’s data. How to receive it, how to store it, how to share/send back, whether I could use a third party e.g. transcription service, how long do keep data for once your work is complete, what can you keep as a top-level summary for your portfolio etc etc etc

  • Professional liability insurance – do I have it (no), should I have it (I don’t know), am I going to have to do my 37th pass at price comparison websites this year to work out if I need it (seems so). Now you’d hope my likelihood of being sued is pretty slim, given I’m aiming for non-profits and not to do any advice in potentially controversial topics like mergers etc. However, the risk of bringing my whole family to destitution if it ever did happen is terrifying. So even though it feels ridiculous to do, it’s probably one I’m adding to the list.

  • And from there, all kinds of insurance – do I need different contents insurance, do I need business premises insurance, are people ever coming to my premises (in which case public liability insurance), business legal protection insurance, business interruption insurance, income protection insurance – I’m spiralling.  This has definitely got a 4am stress-wake written all over it.

  • Oh, and tell our current home insurance that our home is now also a business address, and our mortgage company too while I’m at it

And while I was wading through possible insurance companies, they casually ask you to let them know your ERN number. Of course, yeah, sure. I’ll do that. *Opens a new tab, frantically typing “WHAT’S AN ERN NUMBER????”* Great, now HMRC are involved. I’m definitely now on the brink of heading back to Indeed and restarting those applications, because apparently I also need to register with HMRC as an employer of people (me) and get myself an Employer Reference Number, or ERN, so:

  • Register with HMRC. Get ERN. Give ERN to insurance company (* see update below).

  • Budget – a load of the insurance companies ask for intended income, which is a great question (and don’t I wish I knew the answer!), but it did get me thinking I should try and start as I mean to go on. So right from the beginning, I should put my project management experience to good use and create an annual budget, or rather a cashflow now I’m apparently a business owner

Which also got me thinking about admin generally, and how, since I’m at the very beginning of this adventure, I should get good practices started from the get-go, including things like:

  • Cloud storage – modern, flexible, accessible, reliable, secure. Yes please. I really am a late adopter on some things. Maybe I should add that to my list, be better at embracing new ways of doing things/be less scared of new technologies. Or then again, maybe it’s a healthy scepticism, my kind of “prove it to me first” approach. Anyway, I digress.

  • Filing systems – named folders, all documents in one place, date order , gloriously intuitive filing is my goal.

At which point I think I realised I’d gone to a very dark place and needed to give myself a talking to and see if I could lighten the mood. Which brought me back to:

  • Connections – there’s no point putting in all the work in the world into a phenomenal website, navigating the dark corridors of essential insurance and nailing a day rate, if no-one actually knows what I’m up to. So, here’s to rekindling my brief-and-nearly-forgotten fascination with LinkedIn from decades past, tentatively researching the local Chamber of Commerce and casually reconnecting for coffee/catch ups with a range of previous colleagues to drop into conversation the massive fact that I’m heading out on my own.

And finally, finally,

  • Practice saying I’m going freelance without throwing up or laughing hysterically. Channel a “fake it ’til you make it” approach and hope you actually do make it. I think I need more gin.

*Important update (July 2022) – apparently this was a miscommunication and I don’t need an ERN number for the professional indemnity insurance. Proof I was spiralling!