Written by Gina Horkey

8 Tips to Start Your

Freelance Career

Off on the Right Foot

Do you want to start a freelancing business, but find yourself a little overwhelmed by the idea?

Trust me, you can make a high-quality living as a freelancer. How do I know? Because I'm doing it myself.

My name is Gina Horkey. I’m a married millennial mom (that’s a mouthful!) of two toddlers that are 19 months apart. Life is beautiful, crazy and busy! I spent the last almost nine years as a personal financial advisor with a large firm. I know a thing or two about finance and have used my knowledge and skill-set to help others get out of debt and start making their dreams a reality. I started my freelance business on the side, but was so encouraged by my results that I put in my notice. I recently launched my full-time career as a writer, editor and virtual assistant. My goal is to use my knowledge of personal finance and my experience of transitioning from a predictable salary to that of variable income to show you how you can do it too. You can break free from the 9-5 cubicle life and start living like you’ve always wanted to! Here are eight steps that you should take to increase your odds of entrepreneurial success.

AN INTRODUCTION

Does the right first step seem rather elusive and you’re not quite sure how to start?

Or are you under the impression you'll be one of those 'starving artists,' non-writers warn you about?

This is a biggie. You need to know if your new business is viable, before you jump ship, cut ties and go out on your own. Starting it as a side hustle is a great way to see not only if you enjoy it, but what the income potential is. Making money in addition to your regular job is a great way to position yourself financially for making the leap too! Try to bootstrap as much as possible in the beginning. I spent less than $150 to launch my freelance business (on hosting, a domain name and a freelance writing course). Any other expenses have come from freelance income I’ve produced, rather than from my day job. You don’t have to follow my example, but it’s a really prudent way to ensure that you’re not risking too much – or having unnecessary fights with your spouse!

ASSESS YOUR SITUATION

You need to know what your overall financial picture looks like before you make big life decisions like quitting your stable job to start a new business. Take the time to write down your assets (what you own), liabilities (what you owe), monthly payments, etc. As you list your assets, star anything valuable that you may be willing to part with for money. If you don’t know where your money is, where it goes or any other details of your finances, get a handle on it now! If your significant other handles it, schedule a date to have a family finance meeting. Do it over dinner, coffee or maybe even a cocktail. Make sure you’re on the same page, as ultimately your spouse should be your biggest supporter!

Cliff notes: Make sure your business idea is profitable before quitting your day job!

Cliff notes: Know what your current situation looks like, so you can make future plans (and wise decisions).

START YOUR BUSINESS AS A SIDE HUSTLE 1

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8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

Anyone that says they don’t need a budget, but wants to make a major life change like going from a steady paycheck to a variable income stream either has a trust fund or is lying to themselves. Most people that don’t have a budget (or any interest in one) don’t want to know the truth about where their money is going. They’d prefer to continue their current spending habits and be in the dark as to how much is actually spent. A budget is one of the best tools for figuring out if/when you can make the leap to self-employment. Write down all of your current bills and try and ballpark the discretionary expenses (i.e. gas, groceries, etc.) Look at your bank or credit card statements for the past few months if you really have no idea where your money is going. It may be tedious, but it’s probably going to be an eye opener. Next, make a bare bones budget. What can you cut out if you had to? What is the bare minimum you need to make in order to live (food, shelter, transportation)? Practice living off of this new amount. If you can’t do it, readjust. If you can, pat yourself on the back and write the number down. I’ll tell you what you can do with what’s leftover next.

Cliff notes: Figure out where your income is going and reduce your spending wherever you can.

CREATE A BUDGET (THEN STICK TO IT!) 3

8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

SET A SAVINGS GOAL

Cash is king. It’s worth repeating: cash is king! Having cash on hand will give you the most options possible. It can help when you have an emergency (medical bills or auto repairs for example), when you have an opportunity (quitting your job, taking an unplanned vacation, etc) or in numerous other situations like paying down/off debt. The experts say (including myself, I was one!) that 3-6 months of expenses (not income) in savings is sufficient. It’s more like 6-12 months in the land of freelance. At least six months makes sense for someone thinking about making a career change in a potentially unproven business. Having months of expenses in cash reserves is likely to give you peace of mind as you start your new venture. You’ll have a bit of confidence with having a plan in place if things don’t go as you envisioned. This way you can stay focused on growing your business, rather than making sure you can cover this month’s mortgage payment. Your business may look a lot different if you’re motivated by fear – for example, you might start taking on clients you wouldn’t otherwise.

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4

Cliff notes: Don’t be stupid, make sure you have a nest egg to fall back on

8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

PAY DOWN/OFF AS MUCH DEBT AS POSSIBLE

Remember above? Cash is king. Make sure to build up as much cash as possible from your new side hustle income, before allocating too much towards debt. It seems counterintuitive, especially if you’re paying interest on said debts. Remember though, that you can always allocate cash towards your debt, but likely you won’t be able to take on more debt after you just quit your stable job because you have no cash for an emergency! Once you’ve got a base of savings set aside, consider paying down as much debt as possible before you go out on your own. Consider paying off any small debts first, to lower the number and amount of monthly expenses you’re obligated to pay. Plus, when you pay off a small debt, it’s a quick win! Ideally, it’d be great to be debt free (besides maybe your mortgage) before you make the jump, but this might not be the case for you. You don’t have to work for five more years at your current job to pay off debt BEFORE you can quit to start your own business. Make a goal of where you would ideally be debt-wise, before you transition. Use this as your motivation for building up your side hustle and making as much money as possible from your new business.

Cliff notes: Pay down debt ASAP, but not at the expense of saving.

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8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

BRAINSTORM A CONTINGENCY PLAN

This is really important – again if you’re married, include your spouse in these conversations. How else can you make money if you absolutely need to? What stuff can you sell (see #2)? Take some time to write out a contingency plan for bringing money into your household if your business isn’t doing as well as you thought it would. Give yourself a specific date (and/or dollar amount), which should correspond with your savings account balance and make sure to monitor both.

If you find that your savings balance is dipping dangerously low and your business isn’t earning enough money, then pull out your plan and press play. Could you waitress on the weekends to earn some cash? Consult with your former company? Moonlight for family or friends? What skills do you have that you can put into practice to earn some dough and keep the lights on? Figure this out now, before you quit your day job! And if all else fails, draw a line in the sand of when you’ll look for another corporate job if your new business goes south.

Cliff notes: Make a back-up plan for how to earn money in case your business isn’t profitable.

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8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

You’ve launched your business as a side hustle and are gearing up to quit your job. If you haven’t already, it’s time to consider reaching out to someone further along the path than you for help. It could be a mentor, business coach, etc. The title doesn’t matter so much, it’s what they do and what they can help you do that does. It also doesn’t have to be someone that you pay, but eventually you might want/have to in order to continue getting timely and quality advice. The goal is to start talking to someone that has been where you are in the past. How did they overcome certain struggles? Are there mistakes that they made, that you could avoid by knowing about them ahead of time? Do they know of any clients that could use your services? Are there systems that they wish they would have implemented from the beginning that will make your business turn-key from the start? Entrepreneurship can be lonely sometimes – you need a lifeline from time to time that really gets the ups and downs of this business to help you to make it through. Consider hiring/working with a mentor sooner than later in your new career. Trust me, you’ll get further than you did on your own – I did.

Cliff notes: Start a strategic relationship off the bat to further your business faster.

SECURE A MENTOR 7

8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

PUT IN YOUR NOTICE!

You made it! If you’ve done the seven things above and you feel confident in your abilities to take your side hustle full-time, it’s time to quit your job! Put in your notice with your current employer and celebrate. This is a big deal!

Cliff notes: You made it, give your boss the pink slip in style!

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MISC. THINGS TO CONSIDER

Don’t forget to put aside 20-30% of your side hustle income to pay income taxes. If you’ve never been self-employed, you’ll have to pay the employee and employer taxes on any income earned on your own. Consider hiring an accountant if this is all foreign to you.

When you leave your current employee role, what benefits will you need to replace? Do you need to seek out health care ahead of time, disability or life insurance? You’ll also probably need to rollover your 401(k) and start your own IRA (Roth, SEP, Simple or Traditional) to continue saving for retirement.

You may want to consult with a financial advisor to help you tackle some or all of the above. I loved helping my clients with this stuff. Interview a couple and find one that is trustworthy and that your personality meshes with. Think of it as interviewing a doctor. You have choice – personally I would go with the one that isn’t afraid to show me some tough love, tell me the truth and hold me accountable!

8 Tips to Start Your Freelance Career Off on the Right Foot

WHAT ELSE YOU CAN EXPECT FROM ME

Thanks for signing up for my newsletter and reading this free guide – I hope you’ve found it helpful. Feel free to provide any feedback and/or ask me any questions by dropping me a line at ginahorkey@gmail.com. I love hearing from you! You’ll also start getting my monthly newsletter. I share my most interesting posts from the month before, some personal updates and try to add value by including content I’ve found helpful to building my own business recently. My blog is centered around sharing my journey in pursuing a location independent lifestyle (even though we plan to keep our home). I’m building a business via the web and contracting with clients virtually. There’s a ton of opportunity to do this nowadays – I hope you tag along! It’s my goal to be authentic and share the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m also being transparent with my business and sharing income reports with you all. This is a great way for me to learn and I hope it is for you too. I've had so much fun building my freelance business, that I developed a course to teach you how to do it too. 30 Days or Less to Freelance Writing Success is especially for new and aspiring writers for the web to teach them how to launch a brand new freelance writing business in less than a month. It’s currently offered at the low price of $47. Click here for more info or to get started. Until next time,

~Gina

This email may include referral or affiliate links, which means that I may in some form financially benefit. If you have a problem with that, we might not be friends.

Kidding of course, but this is my due diligence disclosure.