Two habits of successful freelancers

Two habits of successful freelancers

Amid the chaos that is the world right now, it’s easy to focus on the negatives, particularly in our freelance worlds. Each hesitant peek at LinkedIn reveals more people complaining about AI; more people complaining about the people who complain about AI; more people leaving the language professions, you know the drill.

But what about the opposite? Lately, I’ve been doing some speaking engagements where I’ve talked to a number of freelancers who are doing well, and even really well. Like “best year in 15 years of freelancing” kind of thing. Obviously, success is made of many factors, and success is made of a lot of grunt work that no one sees. But I’ve zeroed in on two habits that I think successful freelancers have in common right now, and I think these can be helpful to all of us!

Habit #1: They place the responsibility on themselves, rather than blaming “market forces”

Admittedly, there are plenty of market forces to blame right now: AI, corporate budgets being slashed to make room for yet more AI, the collapse of USAID, more offshoring of work to low-wage countries, multiple wars on multiple continents…it’s not hard to find a villain if you want to.

However, I find that successful freelancers have one outlook in common: While they may lament the state of the world, the economy, the language business, the freelance market, they see themselves as ultimately responsible for their freelance success. They’re a lot more likely to say, “I saw some scary indicators in my own business two years ago, so I started thinking, where am I going from here? Where’s the intersection between what I like doing and am good at, and what clients are still willing and able to pay well for?”

Contrast this with what I hear from a lot of struggling freelancers, and by this I mean absolutely no shame or judgment, just data. “For 10 years, I made 75% of my income from three agencies. In the past two years, one went out of business, one sends mostly minimum charge jobs, and one has switched entirely to MTPE at an hourly rate that’s about half of what I used to make per-word as a translator. So my income is down by 60% and I don’t see things changing.” This may be objectively true, but the issue is the mindset: seeing yourself as a passenger rather than the pilot.

While you alone are certainly not going to change the market forces that shape our work, and “toxic positivity” (believing that everything will be fine, even in the face of evidence to the contrary) isn’t the answer, you can work on reframing. Given these changes in the market that I’m really not thrilled with, what’s my role in the language business now? Do I want to keep freelancing? If so, what kinds of clients have work that I enjoy and am good at, and have the budget to pay someone consultant-level money rather than Fiverr-level money?

Habit #2: They’re sweating the small stuff and pursuing every single lead

This week, I posted on LinkedIn about how to create a company page for your freelance business, to make your Experience section look more professional. In my experience, this is the kind of thing that successful freelancers will jump on (“Oooh! An easy way to make me look more like a business and less like a gig worker!”), whereas struggling freelancers (again, no criticism, just data) are more inclined to say, tons of freelancers use Hotmail; tons of freelancers don’t have a website; I think clients don’t really notice or care; all of that takes time and costs money that I don’t have.

Likewise, I find that successful freelancers right now are pursuing every single lead that looks promising, even if it seems unlikely to pan out. I recently talked to someone who nudged a dormant client that they hadn’t worked with in six years. The person remembered them and wanted to revive the relationship. Another freelancer told me that their agency client lost a large government contract, so they immediately started combing the internet to find out who won it; they found that agency, applied to them, and are now working for them. Another person told me that they wanted to attend an expensive medical conference, but the registration fee wasn’t in their budget. They noticed that one of their direct clients was a sponsor, so they asked whether that client had any free passes to the conference (they did!).

Another decided to start pursuing consecutive interpreting classes because a number of clients have asked for it.

These examples are specific: you don’t have to follow them exactly. The goal is to show you the mental habits of successful freelancers, thinking, “How can I acknowledge this issue and try to find a solution,” rather than, “Oh well, that’s definitely not going to work out.”

I hope these tips are helpful! Have a great week!

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