Doing what you love and getting paid for it has long been the goal of just about every freelancer on the planet (unless you’re already so rich you can afford to work for free!). Mixing travel with those plans to make a living while loving your career adds an extra and more tricky dimension – but it’s genuinely doable with the right planning.
Get paid for your work
- Raise your hand if you would like to combine travel and self-employment to achieve a work-life balance that offers financial stability. That’s a lot of entrepreneurial hands in the air and a lot of itchy feet under the table. We’re going to start this blog with a top piece of advice – invest in small business invoice software (you won’t regret it).
Imagine you put in the effort to land a freelancing contract that pays you while travelling to fulfil your contracted commitments. Superb. That golden email will surely be printed off and framed (you may well think to yourself) so that, one day, you can lean back in your executive chair and announce to your grandchildren that, “That’s where it all started”.
Reality check. Chasing your dreams should not mean chasing your clients for payment. An email requesting work is not an agreement etched in stone to actually transfer funds into your bank account. You need invoicing software. Show your clients you mean business. Present each of them with an itemized bill and payment details. Look the part and get paid.
Your portfolio should make you easy to find
If you have been freelancing for some time and if you believe that you should have received more offers for your superb work by now, you may need to throw the industry a bone. What do we mean by this? People looking for freelancers turn to a variety of online channels to find talented individuals. If your work is too obscure or not mainstream enough, you are invisible.
Imagine a freelancer who specializes in laptop repairs, but specifically deals in NASA grade high-end tech because it makes them more money. That’s fine, but there are plenty of ordinary people who need repairs, too. If you limit your audience to such a degree that word of mouth alone falls on deaf ears, you’re going to have a tough sell on your hands.
Open up your workload to mainstream tasks in your field and benefit from a larger consumer base and more regular recommendations (see how to maintain a mixed graphic design portfolio, for example).
Stay positive
People dealing with freelancers are not always as supportive as they could be. Late payments, poor attitudes, and late demands for changes to the final product (for free – cutting into your earning time) can all mean you become embittered.
As hard as it can be to pick yourself up and carry on with a smile, you must try, because nobody wants to hire someone who emanates negativity. Meet each new client with a positive attitude, be prepared to share a portfolio of varied work, and always be ready to bill them with professional invoicing software (and good luck out there!).