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A freelance career in the creative arts
A freelance career in the creative arts

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3 What I need to learn

What you need to learn during this course will depend on what stage you are at in your freelance or self-employment journey. For example, you may be just starting your exploration of a freelance career in the creative arts or you may be more familiar with what it entails but unsure how to test your idea.

Wooden letter spelling the word ‘learn’ next to a lit light bulb.

The following activity will help you clarify the gaps in your current knowledge.

Activity 3 Identifying my knowledge gaps

Timing: Allow about 10 minutes

Look at the following options and choose the ones that resonate the most with you:

  • I am scared by the idea of ‘starting a business’ or ‘going self-employed’ and want to be reassured that I can do it.

  • I have to become a freelancer in order to find work in my chosen profession but need to know where to start and what I need to consider.

  • I’m curious about what’s involved in starting a business and want to find out more.

  • I want to understand more about the practical technicalities and processes of starting a business – legal, financial etc.

  • I think I’ve got a good idea, product, or service, but don’t know how to test it or how to identify my target audience.

  • I have lots of ideas but need to get them into some kind of order and identify the key steps to follow.

  • I don’t know who to ask for help and am looking for sources of support and advice.

  • I don’t know how to promote my idea effectively and create interest and potential investment.

  • I already do some freelance work in addition to my full time job, but I now want to increase my freelance work and cut down my main job. I don’t know how to manage this transition.

  • Other – explain in the box below:

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Discussion

It’s easy to see a course title that looks promising and find yourself embarking on the course without really knowing what you want or need to learn. By taking some time early on in the course to consider what you hope to gain from it, you will be able to identify the most relevant topics for you and reflect more effectively on whether you are learning what you need to know.

This course is aimed at those with limited knowledge or confidence about starting a business or working as a freelancer in the creative arts. If any of the statements resonated with you, you should find at least some of the answers to your questions in this course!

By choosing to do this course, you’re already taking a useful step towards a more successful freelance career in the creative arts.

Having a self-awareness about what you need to learn at this early stage can be a real advantage, but you don’t know what you don’t know! Watch this short video to find out some of the typical things other freelancers wish they had known before starting out.

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Transcript: Video 4

CASSIE LEEDHAM:
When I started out, I thought I had to set up a company. I had to set up an agency or appear bigger than I was. But actually, I think people buy into people. They like to work with a person. They like to see you and your work and sort of buy into that.
LUCY MARCOVITCH:
A lot of the time you feel like you're just trying to get work, you're not actually-- or you're spending as much time working as you are trying to get work. So you're constantly, constantly trying to build that next, where's that next piece of work coming from. And initially, I felt quite resentful of that. But once you kind of embrace it and realise, well, that's just part of what I have to do. That's my job.
ZAKIA RASHID:
It's OK to be wrong. It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to not be OK.
REBECCA HARLING:
Absolutely wish that somebody had told me that it's OK to not be busy.
VANESSA COOPER:
As much as you try when you're self-employed, you really don't do 9:00 to 5:00.
CASSIE LEEDHAM:
You don't have to be one thing. I think I spent a lot of time worrying about that too much. You can do as a freelancer as a self-employed person, you can do anything.
MATT KATZ:
Take advantage of every opportunity that comes along.
LUCY MARCOVITCH:
You might get lots of work, but then it will start to dry up and you'll go like this. You'll have peaks and troughs. And expect that. I think that's what it would have been helpful to have that said to me because I didn't really know, I didn't really know how-- I didn't expect work to come in, but I thought once it did come in, I'd have it. And I didn't quite expect it to go quite as much like that as it does.
VANESSA COOPER:
The amount of admin you have to do behind the scenes. You know, there's a lot of preparation, there's your taxes, there's you forms to fill, there's your registering with people and getting insurances.
MATT KATZ:
A lot of creative careers end up are basically based on you bringing something that defines you. Defines you creatively. So in my case, it was music, it was what I did. It was how people knew me, as Matt he does music, and turning that into your career, into a job, into the thing that pays your rent and subsequently your mortgage and tries to build savings can build the resentment that you would have towards any career or job or thing that you were obliged to do. And that's somewhat conflicting, isn't it? To have those feelings about something that should be a joy.
ZAKIA RASHID:
What I realised probably in the last 12 months really is what I needed to know all those years ago, which is talk, talk to people and ask for help. If you need help, just speak to people, tell them what you need and you will find that people are more generous and more giving of their time than you might even imagine.
TERRI BROWN:
There are certain things about being self-employed that you don't quite understand until you're there, especially about the other people who are around you in your life because you're self-employed and you're working from home. They tend to forget that you are actually working from home because you're home, then of course, you must have the time to do the stuff that you wouldn't necessarily have the time if you were working elsewhere. And yeah, that kind of conversation that you need to have with the people that are around you to say, I am home, but I am working.
End transcript: Video 4
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Many of these topics will be covered during the course, so hopefully you won’t have similar regrets further down the line!

In the next section you’ll start to look at the potential advantages and disadvantages of working for yourself and consider your own perspective.