What to settle before you leave employment
Preparing a freelance practice means defining its services, checking who might buy them and planning the financial transition before employment income stops.
The service and its boundaries
Two questions precede marketing: what the practice offers and who its buyers are. The offer may continue work done in employment, such as manuscripts or grants, or draw on strengths a writer returning to work would like to use again. A clear service definition makes it possible to research the organisations that might buy it, whether the focus is a disease area, grants, public relations, regulatory work, medical communications, education, advertising or managed care.
A science-communication company's preparation illustrates defining a mission before selecting services. Its founders, biologists with editorial experience and no formal business training, set a mission of increasing Brazilian science's international visibility before deciding what to offer. They restricted work to health sciences, biology and biomedicine because substantive editing needed subject knowledge and they wanted a unified, specialised, recognisable service. They also chose Portuguese-speaking scientific communities, reasoning that understanding the author's original voice helped preserve intended meaning in English-language editing, and offered their website only in Portuguese.
Time and financial preparation
A practitioner's 2018 recommendation was to spend about six months planning the business, preferably while still employed. Business advisers had recommended at least six months' living expenses in the bank before leaving, with a year preferable; advice repeated in 2019 was to have enough income to live for six to twelve months.
Part-time freelancing while employed can provide time to learn writing-business practices, develop ideas and clients, and save startup funds without needing an immediate full-time freelance income. A 2012 account described learning through general business books, books on starting a writing business, questions to freelance vendors and projects that built a client base. Working for a healthcare employer also helped one writer understand medical communication, client needs and preferred work, moving from manuscript and grant editing towards patient writing. Part-time work can be a way to try freelancing or build the business before committing full-time.
Startup budgeting includes furniture and computer equipment as well as recurring internet, telephone and office-supply costs. The 2012 account cited advice to reserve a year's salary plus those business costs, while emphasising that lifestyle and location affect the amount needed and require individual research.
Employment benefits can affect the departure date. One writer delayed full-time freelancing for two and a half years, starting in March 1997, the month after pension vesting, and used the interval to market and take on freelance work for a steadier eventual income. At launch, a few steady clients, some income and a marketing strategy also provided confidence.
Another writer began with freelance editing at night and weekends while employed, with a colleague referring the first client. A partner's steady income helped that household through irregular startup earnings and the delay before invoices were paid.
Testing demand and the contracting route
Potential clients do not guarantee paid work. One experienced in-house writer began testing demand about six months before leaving, contacting the current employer, CRO contacts and local agencies through emails and months of telephone conversations. Managers at the employer confirmed interest but suggested supplying work through a preferred supplier rather than contracting directly with the individual writer.
Large-company procurement departments may establish preferred-supplier arrangements that shape how an external writer can be engaged. The writer therefore chose the business model of pharmaceutical company to preferred supplier or agency, then subcontracted writing to the freelance.
A transition checklist
A conference panel's preparation checklist brings expertise, finances, the offer and working preferences together.
- Establish experience and expertise: freelances are hired to solve problems.
- Understand total direct and indirect financial requirements and identify clients with potential ongoing work before leaving paid employment.
- Define the value proposition, business philosophy and guiding principles.
- Recognise clients as the boss and prepare to negotiate, manage their expectations and handle contracts.
- List goals: full- or part-time work, consistent or intermittent work, and retirement; consider self-motivation, problem solving, organisation and working alone, possible household distractions, and comfort with uncertainty about cash flow and benefits.
The panel's practical caution was that risk aversion may make freelancing unsuitable, since it requires the owner to make the business happen; an accountant can advise on the business or tax-filing form.