Freelancing can earn you a high income while giving you freedom that you wouldn’t enjoy in a full-time job. But it does come with risks and downsides, especially in the first year. So coming up, we’re going to look at the pros and cons of freelancing to decide it’s worth it for you. After reading this article, you’ll know if freelancing is a good career option for your specific situation and goals! Is Freelancing Worth It? Advantages and Benefits First, we’ll look at the advantages of freelancing and the main benefits and opportunities you’ll gain! One big advantage to freelancing is the freedom and flexibility. You can wear what you want, wake up when you want, set your schedule, etc. If you want to begin working at 5:00 am so that you can coach your child’s baseball team in the afternoons, you can do that. If you want to take two-hour lunch breaks each day, you can do that, too. So freedom is one of the biggest, most immediate advantages you’ll gain when you become self-employed as a freelancer. Another big upside to freelancing is the higher earning potential. You can typically charge companies a significantly higher hourly rate versus their full-time employees because they’re not paying for your health insurance, retirement plan, or any other benefits. As a recruiter, I saw independent contractors and consultants earning 20-50% higher than their full-time counterparts in large corporations. You also have more opportunities to scale and exponentially grow your income as a freelancer! As a full-time employee, you’re limited in how high your salary can go. If you want to become wealthy quickly, your best “home run” shot is to get stock options while working for a start-up. But even that’s not guaranteed to work. As a freelancer, you have more options to earn an exceptionally high income ($250,000+). For example, you can transition into an agency model… where you run a service agency and hire a few other freelancers to help handle the work as you grow. You can also pick and choose which parts of the business you WANT to be involved in as you grow, and hire someone else for the rest. For example, if you enjoy selling your service to clients but hate doing the actual work after, you can hire a team to do it for you. Whereas, if you hate selling but enjoy doing the work, you can hire a couple of salespeople to bring in more projects! This can all be done without a physical office and without full-time employees! Hire remote freelancers to join your team, and pay them for the work they do. Freelancing Can Also Be Worth it While Job Searching Freelancing also has big benefits if you’re looking for a full-time job but want to work and earn money in the meantime! It shows employers that you’re staying active and keeping your skills “fresh,” while also providing you with some side income. And you may find that you’re so successful […]
