Does anyone else want a freelance benefit package?
I’m here in the Denver area with my family this week, dealing with an emergency that we still don’t understand. We’re all trying to take a little time off from work to be together. My father worked with his company so he can keep benefits and work half time. My sister is a teacher, and she gets sick days, personal days, plus summers and holidays off. Mom retired a few years ago, so she has a flexible schedule when she needs one, although she does have a longstanding commitment to watch her 2-year-old grandson three days a week.
Me… I’m pissed at my company. Avenue Z Writing Solutions has no benefits package. I can’t use the Family and Medical Leave Act. I don’t have accrued vacation hours, personal days, sick days or holiday pay. When I’m not working, I don’t make a living. And this month, it looks like I’m going to go a full two weeks without billing real hours.
So… as a savvy small business owner, how can I solve this dilemma and plan for the unplanned? How can I create a financial plan that accounts for days off and emergencies?
I may be naive, but I don’t think this is rocket science. I think I need to make more money and put more of it aside. When you have a “regular” job, your company gives you one hour of vacation time for every x number of hours you work, right? So I need to figure out a formula of my own and put away the corresponding dollar amount so I can pay myself when I need to take a day off.
If anyone else has any ideas on how to plan for personal days when you own your own business, I’m all ears.
Claire on 28 Aug 2008 at 8:02 am #
Yup, that’s pretty much it. Or calculate your rate to include holidays and sick time – those days in which you don’t work. As an independent freelancer, it doesn’t work to just convert my old annual salary to hourly. I have to also factor in the lost benefits, taxes, and such. This is why contractors appear to make “so much more” but we really don’t. It’s just not paid by our employers like FTEs (full time employees).
I hope everything with the family is okay.
Craig on 28 Aug 2008 at 9:07 am #
When you work for a company, your company socks it away for you. When you work for yourself, you have to do all the work.
There are solid advantages to be had when working for someone else. All those “little things” that add up quickly when you need them are there when you need them because someone else did it for you.
When you hang out your own shingle, or work for a tiny company, you may have more freedom, but that freedom costs something. That price might be more than you’re willing to pay.
steph on 28 Aug 2008 at 9:53 am #
Crap, I have no ideas! I could have written your post! Well, without the emergency. But I definitely need to make more. The trouble is, it’s going to be a looong while before any of it can be put away. Right now we need every penny – and more.
Lesli Lord on 28 Aug 2008 at 1:39 pm #
I have owned my own consulting company for 15 years now. I cannot stress this word enough…RETAINERS. I live off one or two of my retainers – the rest and freelance work are gravy and socked away in retained earnings and/or a nice annual bonus.
Mark McClure Coaching on 29 Aug 2008 at 2:43 am #
Lesli’s words of experience are reverberating off my business walls too – thanks, Lesli!
Beth, although probably this isn’t the right time for it, considering the family issues you are experiencing; when the time IS right, maybe you should consider sitting down with a good freelance writing/marketing coach (relax, not me!)and work out the bigger strategy for your business in terms of billable hours, a life, “passive” income? etc…
Forgive me if you’ve already got all that sorted – I’m not the expert here, just thinking out loud.
Seems you have a ton of writing experience and the guts to make an entrepreneurial go of it.
And there are probably oodles of people who’d pay to hear or read how you are doing that – people still in the very early stages or just “weekend warriors” when it comes to a writing biz. You’re already an expert to them.
Bottom line – how much value could your writing knowledge and skills unlock if applied beyond the 1-1 selling-your-time model.
Yes, I know a gal’s gotta eat – me too (replace writing with coaching)- and none of this just appears from the ether without work. Still, it is possible IMHO.
Anyway something to chew on.
BTW have you read any of the Strategic Coach’s info? There’s a lot to learn from they give away for free.
I got the idea of “product creation days” from them. Sounds obvious with hindsight but I couldn’t get off the hourly rate bandwagon for the longest.
http://www.strategycircle.com/articles/view/132?page_number=4
Mark Roy Long on 29 Aug 2008 at 3:43 am #
As Mark notes, the big dilemma is the 1-1 selling-your-time model. Sure, you can “give” yourself X amount of time off for Y days worked, but the problem is that during X time off no work is getting done, either to generate money or keep your clients happy.
Once upon a time we did all our production work in house–and if someone was out things ground to a halt–but over the last six months have moved to a freelancer model that allows up to scale up and down as necessary and to run multiple projects.
Perhaps with the experience you’ve gained over the last couple of years you could bring on a couple of freelance associates of your own to 1) allow you better maintenance the clients you have now and 2) prep them to be able to run things if you do have to be out for a while.