I jumped into the world of freelance marketing purely by chance. Actually, I didn’t even choose it.

I was pushed into it by a series of “unfortunate” events, which—in retrospect—I’m extremely thankful for.

But I won’t bore you with my sappy-sorry story. All I can tell you is that I was fired from my job last December for trying to do the right thing.

Out of job and down on luck for not landing another full-time job, I asked the same question posed in this post’s headline—do I have what it takes to jump full-time into freelance marketing?

Initially, the answer was a resounding “no”—until I noticed that my family’s ration supply and my account balance both running very low. That’s when I decided maybe freelancing was worth at least one try.

And oh boy am I glad I took that step! 🙂

In this post, I’m going to share why today is the right time for you to consider freelance marketing as a lifelong career. And I will reason my arguments with analogies from around us as well as from my first-hand experience.

Let me start by giving you a few data-backed reasons on why freelancing might be the job you have always dreamed of.

Even if you’re remotely interested in freelancing, you must have definitely heard of Upwork—one of the most prominent freelancing platforms.

Every year since 2014, Upwork publishes a detailed report focused on the state of freelance work in the U.S.

The report’s latest edition in 2019 found some very interesting data points:

• Freelancing is on the rise. Every year, more people decide to become freelancers for long-term career choice.
  
• Over 45% freelancers believe they have the freedom to create a lifestyle of their choice, as against working for traditional employers.

• The median freelancing rate is $28/hour, more than 70% of other workers.

• Freelancers contribute close to 5% (i.e., $1 trillion) of the U.S. GDP.
  
• Finally, younger professionals are more likely to freelance for want of more independence.

Did your eyes pop after reading any of these stats? Perhaps not.

I certainly don’t agree with the last point since I joined the freelance band-wagon at the ripe age of 37 (although I agree with the point about independence). I also don’t relate to the financials in verbatim because I live and work in India.

But even if none of the above findings had a spell binding effect on you, we all can agree to the fact that freelancing looks like the future of work.

A very compelling argument about this kind of future comes from one of my favorite persons on earth—Naval Ravikanth. I consider him to be one of the most prolific thinkers of our time.

When it comes to the future of work, Naval says:

Wait—isn’t that freelancing? I definitely think so.

Before you think I’m bragging on behalf of the freelancing fraternity, let me confess.

I’m yet to get paid in Bitcoins or set up a Star Wars-themed office on VR. But the rest of the things that Naval said above sound exactly like what we freelancers do for the most part.

My point being—the current wave of freelancing offers a glimpse to the future of work. And if you’re considering taking the freelancing route—even if remotely—this might be the sign you have been waiting for.

I might be biased in saying this, but I strongly believe that most functions in marketing such as research, content, design, promotion, and sales are naturally primed for freelancing.

And here’s the best part about it—you don’t have to quit your job right away to start your freelance marketing career. You can freelance as a side hustle while still keeping your main job.

But what exactly do you mean by freelance marketing?

Freelance marketing is not too different from what you might do as a full-time marketer for a brand. In freelancing, the scope (and sometimes the impact, too) of what you do is wider.

You get to work with multiple brands at once, you choose what you want to work on, you decide your hours, and you get to decide how much your work is worth—financially.

When I think about all of my past jobs, I realize how unproductive I usually was. If you have worked in a corporate office, please tell me I’m not the only one who hated these things:

• Ten hours of meetings every week that won’t lead to anything.
• Too many roadblocks and revisions to ship one small idea.
• Politics, favoritism, and backstabbing you won’t even know of until much later.
• Managing up and down is more like kissing up and kicking down.
• No time to pursue your side-gigs, passion projects, or other experiments.
• Your attempts to build a personal branding around you is looked down upon.

In all fairness, I had a couple of jobs that were really good. I know not all workplaces are bad. But my personal experiences—even when working with the crème de la crème companies—have led me to believe that offices kill creativity and foster a grind culture of garbage-in-garbage-out.

I once made a meme in honor of the frustration I dealt with when it comes to executing a new idea in an office setup.

What’s worse is that you are either not aware of these things until you have an epiphany about it or until someone calls it out.

I was lucky to have been struck with both. First, when I was shown the door. I realized how much time I (and the employers) wasted by being in a relationship that yielded zero value.

And the second time, when I was in rock bottom looking to find a ray of hope, Nassim Nicholas Taleb whispered his words of wisdom into my conscience:

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

Of course, I had heard of that quote before and liked it for the truth it passed in the form of pithy humor.

But when I was in one of my darkest moments of my life, Taleb’s words worked like an axe that freed me from the chains of my slave mentality.

After I took the freelancing route, I started seeing so many opportunities staring at me that I didn’t know existed. It was like somebody took me away from my office window to Everest base camp and yanked the blindfold off of my eyes.

I didn’t know how limiting my view of the world was outside of my workplace window until I saw the vista from the mountaintop—which was more rewarding and more challenging in equal measures.

Can I be a freelance marketer too?

Absolutely. If you are a marketer who is curious, driven, and consistent—freelancing is a great fit for you no matter your personality type.

Freelancing is especially best for marketers who are prolific content creators, who operate or specialize in a niche market, and who are not afraid to learn through trial and error.

You can be a freelance marketer if you are one of the following:

• Niche professional
• Video marketer
• UX/UI/Graphic designer
• Content writer/marketer/creator
• Podcaster
• Web developer
• WordPress developer
• Brand evangelist
• Fractional/Remote CMO

Content (in any format) is booming, especially given the uncertain times we live in. Advertising has become obsolete. Brands have to market to customers in a way that is genuine, real, helpful.

And only inbound, organic marketing can achieve that. For marketers, that means a huge swathe of gaps that they can fill with their highly sought-after skills. 

The benefits of going off the corporate grid

Life as a freelancer can be pretty amazing.

Don’t let me fool you though—the perks are very low and the stakes are pretty high. There’s more to the bravado of being your own boss and attending Zoom calls from the loo.

Freelancing is nothing like the pool working I had imagined:

[GIF source]

Forget free food and health insurance that I had by default in all my past jobs. I’m yet to give myself a weekly leave since the time I started freelancing. I’m still a noob freelancer; hopefully, I’ll come around to it.

My experience of being a freelancer for the last five months tells me that you need the following four things to kick ass as a freelance digital marketer.

• Marketable skills: Strong foundation and cross-verifiable skills in copywriting, search engine optimization, content marketing, ad campaigns, and analytics. 

• Extreme self-discipline: Imagine being your own Mr. Miyagi to the self-doubting Karate kid within you. You have to keep pushing yourself without cutting any slack.

• Networking chops: Nobody cares about your marketable skills until you market it to them. In other words, you’ve got to sell yourself constantly.
  
• Family support: If freelancers are taking over the world, your family is very, very oblivious about it. Most people think that if you’re a freelancer because nobody hired you full-time.

Without the support of your immediate family, it’s hard to be a self-respecting freelancer for too long.

So to me, freelancing feels like working even when you are supposed to be on a break:

[GIF source]

On the bright side, freelancing can open doors for you that a full-time employment may never do. Your mileage may vary, but here are a few benefits of being a freelance marketer.

1. Six figure income

Annually. In dollars. Obviously, you have to put your nose to the grindstone in order to reach this number. Freelancing is nothing like the get-rich-quick scheme of selling Amway products. 

You’re still a wage worker—but of supreme order. More often than not, you’ll be busy with work upto your eyeballs.

You have to be an everyday gladiator—fight distractions, slay your deadlines, annihilate the redundancies on your way, and impress the empress (the clients) watching your each move from the royal dais.

2. Lifestyle

As a freelancer, you can create the lifestyle you want.

After I converted as a freelance marketer, I suddenly have great control on what I eat, when I wake up or sleep, how much time to spend with my family, and how much to spend. You no longer have to put yourself through the daily ringer of commuting to your 9–5 job and build your life around it.

I decided to move 3000 kilometers away from the city I was living/working in for the last seven years—a month after my first freelancing gig.

I realized I had a better shot at living a well-balanced life in a small town next to the Himalayan foothills than paying a bomb to live in India’s sixth most crowded city, fuming with pollution and tempers. (I still ❤️Chennai for everything it gave me.)

3. Increased productivity

Except for the new kind of distractions that you have to battle at home, freelancing is a much more focused work than going to work and engaging in half a dozen small talk everyday.

As a freelance content marketer, I have averaged writing about 5,000 words every week since January. When I was a full-timer, that was my monthly average—on a good month.

I have no way of telling if I was the lazy bum at work or was it the innumerable chefs who kept telling each other how to cook a broth.

Freelancing has also enabled me to do a lot more than just wage-based work. For instance, I and my long-time comrade-in-arms Yaag (short for Yaagneshwaran) started The ABM Conversations Podcast in December as an accidental side project.

Had I still been working in one of my past jobs, I doubt I’d have been able to give it as much time and attention as I’m giving right now.

As for Yaag, he’s a multi-tasking Jedi. He has a very fulfilling full-time job, he writes a new marketing book every year, flies all over the world to give talks multiple times in a year, and still finds time to do pet projects like the podcast.

If you want to check out our podcast, listen to one of the episodes below:

4. Entrepreneurship

I’m well aware of it. Freelancers get a lot of flak when they call themselves entrepreneurs.

And I tend to agree. They are same same but different. Maybe solopreneurs is a better word, but it’s not up to me to nitpick.

Freelancing might not be comparable to entrepreneurship, but being on your own teaches you what you are capable of. I personally know a ton of people who launched their full-scale marketing agency or started some business a few years after becoming a freelancer.

If you play your cards right, freelancing shows you the ropes of entrepreneurship and teases you to want more freedom and prosperity. This is especially true for niche players who can create something as well as sell it.

If you’re not convinced, look around you and see the number of lifestyle businesses that marketers like you and me have built for themselves.

Just like you, I thought that being a freelancer might mean pushing my family to the brink of starvation. But then the more I thought about it, and looked around me, the more convinced I became.

Look at all the people making a profitable living as content publishers on websites such as 99designs, Gumroad, Podia, and Teachable.

Look at referral marketers minting money with their websites.

Notice the Instagram models or Tik Tok influencers making money with their ephemeral content.

I did my due diligence and found that 99% of these people didn’t have a full-time job. Heck, most of them are not even marketers.

They do what they do for the love of their vocation and they are making money along the way. And the majority make way more than a six-figure salary by doing things that they liked.

They still need brands to pay them for the content they create. But the relationship is much more fluid.

You don’t deal with gatekeepers. You deal with clients who need to get things done.

You don’t lock yourself inside a room with 15 other people to agree on one simple idea. You put the idea out in the public and let it speak for itself.

If it’s a hit, it will get your more business. If it misses its mark, nobody actually cares and you move on to your next task.

Even content-obsessed, marketing-savvy companies like HubSpot rely on freelance marketers to churn out a huge volume of content.

Who’s freelancing not for?

Great question.

I was trained as a journalist in my past life. So I’m used to dissecting any story from all possible angles. I believe it’s important to talk about when or why freelancing might not be up your alley.

Freelancing is a waste of time for you if you can identify yourself with one of the following situations:

• You’re a marketer who shoulders important responsibilities for the brand you work for. You’re making a difference for that brand, you have freedom to experiment and/or change things up as you deem fit.

• You are someone who has a high level of dependency on on-site teams, such as the engineering or development folks.
  
• You have high financial stakes on the personal front. You are either the sole bread-winner of your family or you have sizable debts you need to pay off every month.

• You can’t work by yourself, or from home, everyday. You are someone who thrives in the presence of other people, making small talks, and collaborating in person.

• You have a closed mindset. You might not realize it, but you have a fixed mindset if: you get easily frustrated when things don’t go your way, you don’t like feedback/criticisms, you think you can’t change your current situation, or you are risk-averse.

Before you think I’m passing on value judgments, please know that these are perfectly valid reasons for you to reject freelancing as a career choice. After all, it’s a personal choice and it’s highly contextual.

For example, it was an easy choice for me to become a freelancer because I didn’t have any debt. But I know a few good marketers who can’t risk their current, well-paying jobs because it’s what pays their bills or debts.

For them, jumping full-time into freelancing is akin to making a career/financial death wish. And if you find yourself in one of these situations, you should probably not get into freelancing.

How to get started as a freelance marketer?

This part is easy. And I knowingly kept it for the last because—if you are a marketer worth your salt—you will figure this out on your own.

And you will have fun along the way. Why? Because when you’re a salaried marketer working for a brand, you market a product or a service. When you’re a freelancer, that equation changes and suddenly you are now the product.

[GIF source]

Yes, now you have to treat yourself like a business. You have to market yourself and your skills to the world. Personal branding now becomes your business imperative.

And let me repeat myself here. It’s much easier to get started as a freelance marketer if you have a niche specialization.

For instance, you’re an SEO expert with 4 years of experience in the fintech industry.

Or, you’re a marketer who has generated tons of leads for multiple ITSM software brands.

Personally, I have developed a niche in creating engaging, conversion-ready content for B2B brands—especially in the SaaS domain. I love helping brands improve their organic marketing.

And although I believe a good marketer will figure things out on his/her own, we all can use some advice. Below are a few ways on how you can position yourself as a freelance marketer.

1. Test the waters

Remember the part about not having to quit your full-time job? Please do that if you are not very sure about freelancing as a long-term career choice.

Talk to your trusted friends and colleagues and try to bag a few freelancing gigs to see if you enjoy doing it. Maybe do it pro bono to gauge your level of excitement. Or, maybe try it out as a pet project.

2. Prepare a portfolio

Polish all your past work, start a website, or publish your work in portfolio websites such as Behance, Contently, Dribbble, YouTube, or Medium. I built mine on Contently, Medium, and my own website to demonstrate proof of concept to prospective clients.

Even if you don’t land on any gigs after creating a portfolio, it might help you find your next job or improve your personal branding.

3. Build a personal brand for yourself

A lot of people I talk to are intimidated when they hear the words—building a personal brand. They think personal branding means making a name for yourselves like Gary Vee or Grant Cardone and flying around the globe in your personal jet.

I used to be one of them until my friend and comrade-in-arms Yaagneshwaran talked me out of it. He says, “you already have a personal brand even if you don’t realize it. So why not use it for your own benefit?”

And I have started to realize how true that is.

True, Gary and Grant have some of the world’s best personal branding around them. But personal branding is proportionate to your sphere of influence.

You can do it at your level, such as by consistently posting on social media channels, writing a book, launching a podcast, giving away a freebie, publishing your video or designs, and launching a project on Kickstarter Patreon, or Product Hunt.

I am still working on building my personal branding and I think it’s a must. It’s like nicely packaging the product that you’re selling. I started by guest blogging rigorously and interacting with like-minded people on LinkedIn.

Do whatever can help you build an audience around you and create a brand recall for your work. Your personal brand can be the growth catalyst for your freelancing career.

4. Get referrals

The path to success is shorter when you have the support of people closest to you. For freelancers, one of the greatest boost of growth is through personal or professional referrals.

Announce your closest colleagues and other people in your network that you’re open for business. Power up your LinkedIn profile by optimizing it for the right kind of keywords. Rinse and repeat this process from time to time.

Also ask your well-wishers to pass your profile to others or put in a good word about you if they come across opportunities that fit your offerings. If you have clients you have already worked with, ask them for referrals or testimonials.

5. Come up with outbound sales strategies

Your survival as a freelancer highly depends on how you find clients. If you are lucky, your personal branding and referrals will work as inbound channels and give you enough clients to fill your pipeline.

However, you still have to fish for clients to sustain for the long-term.

A word of caution here—get off the platforms like Upwork and Fiverr unless you’re scraping the bottom of the barrel. These platforms suck your blood financially and drain you out. It’s not worth the time and these platforms make it very difficult for you to find clients and deal with them one-to-one elsewhere.

Instead, I suggest coming up with smart outbound strategies that you can bank on to find clients repeatedly. I have done things like looking for relevant hashtags on Twitter and LinkedIn (e.g., #hiringfreelancers  #freelancemarketing #designerswanted etc.).

I am also part of a few marketing-related Slack Channels (Animalz’s CMCG and WWR) where people regularly post their requirements for freelance marketers. In addition to finding new opportunities, you can build new relationships or collaborate with fellow marketers and learn new things along the way.

You can also use tools like Wiza.co to extract email addresses of prospects from LinkedIn to cold outreach them.

Let freelance marketing free you from the meaningless grind

If you feel that you’re not cut out for freelancing even after going through this post, I respect that. I’m sure you have good reasons to continue doing what you have been doing.

But if you are anything like me—slogging at a 9–5 job and at the mercy of mediocre managers to validate your worth—you should give freelancing a solid try. You’d be amazed at the kind of opportunities you will land once you free yourself from the corporate donkey work.