Ильгиз Валинуров
Freelancing: the smartest way to be free and highly paid

© Валинуров И., 2020

© Валинурова Д., иллюстрации, 2020

© ООО «1000 бестселлеров», оригинал-макет, 2020

Ilgz Valmurw s a famous headhunter, author & bestsellers on personnel search, and career management Speaker of the largest international conferences “Career consultant of the year”

Doctor of human resource management Busness consultant on strategic personnel managemen. Fa 20 years in the profession conducted 15000 interviews with mid- and senjor-level candidates fa the world's largest capaations. 5.000 HR specialists have been trained in mao than 10 countries at his semnars and trainings. He is one of the top 10 expens in Russia on staff training and development.

A father of five children, and a traveller.

The book is full of real examples from the work of freelancers and their customers around the world. Prmides a step-by-step start and development plan fa oneself as a successful freelancer Contains checklists, ideas, life hacks, and inspires action!

"If you want in 20 days to go through the way the author went for 20 years, be sure to study this book”.

Alexey Zakharov, Superjob.ru, President

Author’s note

“We live in a time of change. Today, everything in the world is changing rapidly. If you don’t change the situation, then tomorrow you will be overtaken by your competitors” – this is how most business books published over the past 20 years begin.

I don’t agree with that. This is an exaggeration. Consultants write so to make readers feel how outdated they are, and make them run to pay money for “magic pills” – an advice from consultants.

Change has become part of our daily routine. New technologies appear every day. And we become either their creators, or users. We can no longer stay beyond the world global trends.

Companies implement automation, digitalization, and pass work to robots and artificial intelligence. Knowledge management systems reduces dependence on personel.

The key problem is that technology is changing the way of consumption, not the habits themselves. People used to read newspapers, but now the content is in the Internet. We used to meet to share the latest gossip – now it is discussed in social networks. We made calls to discuss work and personal issues – now we exchange messages and emojis in messengers. We used to go shopping – now we order delivery after choosing goods in the online store. Used to read paper books – now we read electronic ones or listen to audio. In fact, a little has changed…

Not many people change their basic approach to life. You went to work. The employer has decided that part of the functions you can perform from home. And now you already go to work not 5, but 2 or 4 times a week. This saves time. But the essence of the work has not changed. The same employer pays you the same money regularly 2 times a month. Almost everything is as it was before.

The point of this book is to show the new reality. Reality in which you work from anywhere in the world for employers who can be located in any country.

Isn’t it interesting?

Let’s go then!

Forword

Ilgiz has created a unique product about how to start living and earn money on your own. For those as brave as he is, this is the ability to avoid mistakes and start nicely right from the start. For the timid ones this is a chance to spot the possibilities. For those who have to search for ways to earn money, this is a great way to understand that freelancing is not scary and it may contaion more possibilities than that of their previous life.

This book is like a torchlight, it is full of practical tips.

And the stories of hard working yet free individuals, who demonstarte by their own example what does it mean – to be, to live and to earn as a freelancer – make it especially beautiful.

But I guess that the main advantage of the book is that it is honest and positive. Ilgiz honestly warns about what a freelancer can expect and what he gets in return. I think the book will become a reference for those who goes this way.

Boris Diakonov, co-founder and President of “Tochka”Bank

Forword from the first reader

The modern world of employment relations is changing and transforming faster and faster every year, and technological progress does not stand still. 15 years ago it was hard to imagine that you can successfully perform one or another task remotely, transferring large amounts of data at a long range, organizing online conferences and creating virtual production teams.

More and more people leave warm and cozy office and go into free floating under the name “remote work” – the freelance!

So who is a freelancer as such in the modern world?

This is a person who offers his services via specialized media resources by means of private ads. This has been done before in newspapers; now this is implemented in internet – on various websites, by word of mouth and, of course, using personal contacts. All these are logical things used for job search of any kind.

Freelancing is especially widely spread in areas such as design (in all its manifestations), copywriting and journalism, law, programming, architecture, translation, photography and video production. There are also a few different types of expert activities, but for our country, unlike the United States or China, freelancing is still more related to creative professions.

More than 50 % of people engaged in freelancing are in the age between 25 and 34. This is so to speak a backbone of freelancing. The next age category is between 35 to 44. Less freelancers are at the age of 1824. People at the age of 45+ are quite rare: only 8 %. Young people under 18 are even more rare.

Over the past ten years the freelancing, while staying a part of the self-employed segment, came out of the shadows and became a big growing market, a separate and important branch of the national economy with its own rules, shop ethics, information space, financial mechanisms, public and state regulation.

Super profis, the intellectual elite of self-employed, its “digital collars”, arose among freelancers.

Since freelancing is a personal business, there exist it’s own pros and cons, its disadvantages and advantages, the same as in any other type of business So what are the advantages of being a freelancer?

Of course, the most important thing is independence from anyone, free working hours and comfortable working conditions: work at home, own workplace, clothing, food, downshifting or, on the contrary, travelling to other countries. Creating an optimal balance between family, environment and work. Possibility to talk to the customer in detail. A comfortable state for the production of a particular service. A relatively low threshold for starting your own business. It is clear why though: you work for yourself, and from the point of view of the overheads you fairly low professional income tax plus spendings for the computer hardware, furniture, daily routine payments such as food and drinks.

Also one of the big advantages is the ability to choose your own job and refuse uninteresting or unprofitable projects. The ability to choose partners independently and adapt to the existing virtual team.

There are usually two sides to a coin. What are the disadvantages for freelancers?

One of the main disadvantages is that you have to search for new orders yourself.

This can be costly in terms of time and money since the marketplaces for freelancers are not charities; they live on money earned on selling paid premium accounts and advertising.

The income is extremely uneven, this is why you need to plan your own budget and do bookkeeping to understand how to pay taxes, how much money has come and how much has gone, and how much money you spent on your promotion.

There are no sick leaves, social security, or trade unions. You need to take care of yourself.

There is also a risk of fraud from the side of the customer.

For some people, much extra effort can be required for self-management, which may lead to a nervous failure. And, of course, you can’t ignore the customer and his pros and cons.

Undoubtfully, a huge plus is the variety of choice and agreements. A choice to get paid hourly or for the implemented work only. A possibility to engage a highly qualified person for a smaller budget.

Savings on the rent of the workplace, no need to provide social guarantees and pay for the vacation and sick leave. And, of course, a minimum of paperwork and reporting.

The disadvantages include complexity of controlling the workflow, the problem of protecting confidentiality and the risk of leakage of certain private information, the inability to engage a freelancer in the projects which require access to state secrets and personal data.

Let’s return to the issue of job search and self promotion.

As I wrote in the beginning, job search and self promotion is implemented via online job marketplaces, word of mouth, personal contacts, and other resources. One way or another, the issue of self promotion is quite important and long lasting. But, oddly enough, it seems to be very simple. At the same time, it is really very difficult to explain where to start and how to build your personal brand.

Now I will try to specify the main postulates very briefly. Always be open. Put your photo in your profile, not a virtual image. Share your contacts, and fill in your portfolio with the works that you have completed and that can be absolutely anything, including those made for friends and colleagues. Show yourself and your skills to potential customers as eloquent as possible to the potential customer. Take on only those obligations that you can fulfill!

Participate in industry forums, competitions, and awards: it will allow you to show yourself and your skills. In addition, events of this kind set the benchmarks of quality, the level of professionalism and the vector of development. This is very important both for your development and for the development of the market!

If you want to be an independent, responsible, educated, confident «free artist», a free fighter and a true freelancer – just be the one!

Yours sincerely:

Kirill Anoshin

Founder of multi-profile marketplace for remote work Freelance.ru

Director of The National Freelancers Guild: Freelancers Guild. RF

Producer of the independent freelancers award “Golden spear”: GoldenLance.ru

Introduclion

In April 2011, one of my clients in search for top managers, the international restaurant holding “Arpikom”, asked me to speak at an internal corporate conference “Russian food market outside the home in 2020”.

This took place 9 years ago. My task was to analyze global trends and prepare recommendations for changes from the point of view of the labor market, job seekers and HR services, speak to key employees of the holding company and give recommendations for preparing changes within the company.

I have prepared 17 points. Today I reviewed my presentation once again. And I was surprised to see that 6 of them are directly related to remote work. A third! Another third is indirectly related to remote work.

And only one point did hasn’t come true. Namely the death of a resume.

Yes, a traditional resume remains a necessity if you applying for an office job. What were the other 5 points? To put it short.

The first – you probably already guessed. Remote work. Yes, at the beginning of 2011, this was not a trend. This was the probable future – and today it has come true. Due to coronavirus in 2020, most companies around the world have asked employees to work from home. And some of these employees will definitely not return to the office.

The second point is geolocation. Search for a job near your home.

Only a few years later the leaders among job search websites “Superjob” and “Head Hunter” introduced an opportunity to specify the location of the employer in the job description.

But If you work not in the office, then your geolocation is any country in the world.

The third point is online interviews. Now there is no need to meet in person in the office to find a job and demonstrate your experience. Our recruitment agency “Business Connection” acquired customers and candidates all over the world. If in the very beginning of the new century an order from the Philippines, the Czech Republic or Cyprus was an extraordinary challenge for us, now we understand how to implement it.

The fourth point is changing of the business processes. Remote work creates new standards of communication, managerial competences, task setting and performance control. A special goal arises – to motivate employees you can’t see every day, and their socialization. These are new challenges for HR.

The fifth point is project-oriented activity. Earlier the employers were confident in the stability of sales markets, business processes, and their own invincibility. And they hired people, in fact, to support and strengthen current processes. The new economy, and especially the “Industry 4.0”, expects super results in a short time, clear budgets, clear view of the resources used and the reasonable commercial result from the performers. It is no longer possible to do in the same way as before simply because it was done this way before.

Each task is a project. With all the rules of the project management involved.

And the sixth point, most important for us, is multiple sources of income. Yes. As blasphemous as it sounds, work in large corporations is a legalized slavery. You work from morning till night and have a weekend for your personal life and family.

And a vacation leave once a year to recover and to continue work.

Can you imagine an employer 10-20-30 years ago who would have been positive about what you go freelancing in order to have extra earnings? No. This is a corporate betrayal, an activity beyond the corporate rules.

But what about now? Now this is becoming a normal practice. Employers understand they’re losing their monopoly on you. You become less and less dependent on them. It is unpleasant for them, painful, and causes resistance.

But they can’t change the trend. And those employers who have accepted this and allowed their employees to be independent of them, they get a lot of loyalty and respect from employees.

This is the purpose of the book. To show the possibilities of multiple sources of income and independence from a single employer.

I can give you my own example. I’m an entrepreneur. Main business is search for top managers. These are people with an income between 500 thousand and 3 million rubles a month. In addition, I conduct personnel management seminars around the world. I’m a book writer and get quarterly.

royalties from the book sales in paper, electronic and audio formats. I’m a career consultant. I help you decide on career development, development strategy, tactics for achieving goals, find the ideal employer for these purposes. I’m an HR consultant and an expert in HR digitalization: I help companies attract the best candidates and build the right relationships with employees to increase efficiency and reduce routine. I’m a speaker at conferences. And I get paid for it. In 1999 I started working as a recruiter. He received the money only for the filling in the vacancies. Since then, I have mastered some related industries and other sources of income. The main thing for me is transition to the executive search level, the search for top managers.

You might say that it makes sense for a headhunter to conduct HR training and write career books. Yes, it makes sense. With all this, how many other people do you know who, starting from calling candidates by phone and conducting initial interviews, and getting $150 a month, were able to actually reach a level where one hour consultation is $500 worth?

I’d been going for this for 20 years. But now is the time when it is possible for you to reach this quicker!

I am grateful to each of my customers for their experience and opportunity development.

And especially to the restaurant holding company who asked me to make a one-hour report “Key HR trends-2020”. In the result, I performed more than 30 times with this presentation. At conferences and meetings in Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ukraine, Belarus, Spain, Azerbaijan, and even in Indonesia.

It’s amazing that, even after making a speech in 2019 with the same presentation in Moscow, where I didn’t change a single slide, I received an ovation and a lot of questions from HR professionals.

I promise that the next presentation will take into account the trends of 2030 and will be altered.

And we’re getting to the point!

Move on to free relocation, income, success and selfrealization!

Chapter 1
Who are the freelancers

Most likely, you have already read about it somewhere. So I put it briefly. In the medieval centuries, this was the name of the helpers to the spearmen, the knights. Those who carried their weapons. Lance is a spear. According to Wikipedia, the term became widely used after publishing of the novel by Walter Scott “Ivanhoe”. The most striking example from classical literature is Sancho Panza in “Don Quixote”. However, Cervantes wrote about this even back there in the 17th century.

It doesn’t matter how or when the term first appeared. The more important issue is what does it define now.

It does define people who can work for multiple employers and are not tied up to each of them by longterm obligations.

A freelancer is a person who offers their services to employers without being employed by them. Which services?

This can be writing texts, design, page makeup, search for personnel, training, programming, translation, photo and video shooting, website creation, mailings, typing, information collection, accounting, legal services. This can be absolutely any work related to mental labor.

What kind of freelancer services do I order myself? These are website promotion, corporate souvenir design, makeup of handouts for seminars and trainings, making of presentations, design of publications for Instagram, layouts of my books, creating covers, designing my YouTube channel and its content promotion, translation of my books to other languages, creation of illustrations for books.

In other words, I am a fairly regular customer for freelancers.

Let’s take a look what are the advantages of working as a freelancer.

Independence

There are several nuances here. Independence from the office. No office squabbles and unnecessary talks. Freelancer is paid for the result. And he doesn’t have to attend meetings and other get-togethers; he does his job. He focuses on it and dedicates time to it. This increases productivity.

Independence from one employer. He has several of them. If something happened to one – closing, or delays, or a change in policy for example – he can switch to the others. Employees who work for one employer are more at risk.

You have a mortgage and loans, and you get a salary from one company. If something happens to it, this may be crucial for you and your family. And if there are 10 employers, this doesn’t mean much, right?

I have a cousin Vadim. He has been working at customs for more than 15 years.

We rarely meet – about once every 3 years. One day he asked me a question: “How do I make way to commercial structures»? «Why? – I asked. – You serve to the state, have a guaranteed salary on time, you have status, shoulder straps, career promotion.»

The answer surprised me: «We are unstable. Nobody knows what the state will introduce tomorrow and what new rules will be.»

I was in shock. I was sure that civil servants are confident in the future and trust the employer. But it prooved to be false. Well, we had a talk and a discussin; I suggested him options and introduced to the local business community. Nothing has changed.

Although he is not happy with the work, he remains there, at customs. Does it malke sense for me to influence it? No. Changes is a matter of independent choice.

I can help you change only if you’ve already decided that this is necessary for you.

What else can I say about independence? Here goes independent of the location. In most cases, mental work can be done from anywhere in the world.

What about independence of the work schedule? You are doing a job by the right deadline, not just working from 9 to 18.

Independent of the tasks. Yes, this is also interesting and unusual in the beginning.

Could I realy do this way?

If you work in an office, you have to implement all the tasks that your boss gave you. Working for yourself, you can choose projects, tasks, customers, and partners. You can easily refuse the work that is not interesting for you it is not profitable.

Since I’m an entrepreneur, for me the possibility to choose who I’m willing to work with is one of the main values.

A freelancer is in fact an entrepreneur, who works for himself and his family.

So what else can we do besides being independent!?

Saving time on the road

You don’t need to spend a couple of hours on the road and in traffic jams every day.

But! If you flew to Bali, then 11 hours of flight to Denpasar we will not consider a waste of time on the road, okay?

More time with your family and friends

You need to work. But you don’t have to rush to the office at 9:00. You can take the kids to kindergarten and school in the morning, and meet them after. Even if you are busy at home, then your homies see you and it makes them feel good. This is much better than staying late at work.

As a father of five children I know this, and it has been tested by personal experience and two divorces.

Ready to start freelancing? Doesn’t it sound great and inspiring?

What about the cons?

Yes, there are several. Let’s get into this.

At first glance, the most difficult thing is sales. Say, you used to do the design in the company, receiving technical specifications, implementing it, approving it with the internal customer. But now you have to start from finding the customer. Then agree on working conditions, sign off the specifications, get prepared, agree on the contract and sign it off, complete the work, sign the act of acceptance… Possibly to do the job of a courier and bring documents in person or send them by mail, then get paid, then pay taxes…

Isn’t it easier to work for hire?

Organizational, legal, and accounting issues look intimidating only at first glance. I know people who are afraid to start their own business because of the fact that they did not know how to solve all the bureaucratic issues. Even in 2019, one fellow admitted that he was afraid to start business because he didn’t know how to organize «protection». The guy is under 30. In the «dashing 90’s», he wasn’t even born. Why the fear of bandits, protection, kickbacks? Perhaps from parents or from internet tabloids?

Let’s talk about my experience. I started my company in 2000.

And initially everything was outsourced. Legal services – such as company registration, account opening, contracts with customers and employees. Accounting services – such as reporting, taxes. The only thing I did myself was signing payment orders. Yes.

There were times when you had to do it by hand and then take it to the bank by feet. Now I make payments to clients using my mobile phone’s Face ID. What bank do I use? The «Tochka» bank. I do recommend it to you.

Subscribe to its founder’s Facebook. His name is Boris Diakonov.

Creating corporate identity, business card design, website and office design, IT-administration, document delivery – all this was done by external contractors – companies, or individuals. They weren’t called freelancers then, but in fact they were freelancers. Now these tasks can be solved remotely, even the system administrator can be located in an other city.

In other words, my company only had recruiters on staff. All functions, except recruitment, were given to external contractors.

Now it is much easier to get income officially and pay taxes. In Russia, there is a special status of «self-employed». You pay 6 % tax on income received form corporate entities and only 4 % when payment is received from individuals. Everything is automated, Both from the point of view of registration and taxes. Physically you don’t have to go anywhere at all. In Europe, America, and Asia, there are similar rules, but taxes are higher there.

Let’s go back to the cons.

1. There’s a need to search for customers. This means – to sell. And this is loved not by all of us. As for me, I like to sell. I like to get into the problems and tasks of customers and offer solutions. And to bill, of course.

2. Income may be unstable. You have customers today – but tomorrow you don’t. This will be discussed in the following chapters. There are lifehacks and rules for this.

3. You have no social guarantees. Do you believe in them at all? Now you are your own guarantor of income and expenses. Saving and investing just 10 % of the income, you can save a decent amount over a few years. If you haven’t done financial planning before, here’s the reason to start.

4. Self-motivation and discipline. Previously, it was possible to obtain the «magic-kick-in-the-ass» from the management. Now you’ll have to do it yourself.

5. Vacation. Previously, you could relax 100 % during your vacation. In freelancing, on the one hand, you can arrange vacation at any time, on the other – now you have it unpaid and, if the financial reserve is small, you will have to get to work even when on vacation.

6. Psychological reluctance to work independently. This is partially connected to paragraph 4. This is essential difference between freelancers and employees on the company’s staff who work remotely. If you are on the company’s staff and work at home, you still have a boss, colleagues, common chats, intranet, meetings. And a stable salary. A freelancer doesn’t have that. Socialization is necessary for most people. Well, only if you’re not a 100 % introvert who sits in the office with headphones on and tries not to talk to anyone without a strong need.

7. Risks of non-payment from the customer. You’ve done the job, but the customer haven’t accepted it. Or he has accepted, but refused to pay.

And you can’t go to his office. He’s in another city, or maybe even in another country.

It is necessary to understand that for the employer working with you looks like risky.

What can this mean?

1. He can’t control every day whether you ‹ve been implementing the job for him or not. And he ordered it from you; this means, he needs it to be done by the deadline. A freelancer may get sick or get distracted from the job by personal problems. By outsourcing of the same task to a company, the customer avoids such risks, since the executor can pass the task to an other employee.

2. A freelancer may refuse the implementation of the projects agreed upon before, especially when getting a more profitable order. There is a risk for the customer not to get the result at all.

3. When passing the project for implementation, the employer can share confidential information about the company’s past and even its strategic plans. For example, if you are an accountant, a marketer, or analyst on freelance. Companies who are afraid of these risks, they commit the freelancers only the simplest work. And they may be blackmailed by unscrupulous freelancers.

4. The quality of implementation and communication. If the company has common understanding of the rules for preparing documents, their transmission, discussion, approval, and everyone is OK with the rules, the freelancer just can’t take all the nuances into account while working simultaneously with a dozens of customers. This may cause conflicts or disruptions in order execution.

And the advantages for the customer are even more significant!

1. The most important thing is that the thing for what you pay is the result, not the process. The customer does not care if you spent 1 hour on the task or 10 hours. He pays for the service implemented. This is not the same in case of office workers. According to statistics, an employee spends 2.5–3 hours out of 8 directly performing their duties. The rest of the time he wastes on meetings, breaks, coffee, chatting with colleagues.

2. The job of a freelancer is usually cheaper than the same service order from the company or employment of an employee in the staff.

3. The customer may obtain an expertise absent within the company. And even international specialists, who may not be present not only in their city, but in the whole country.

Isn’t it cool?

4. There are no costs for equipping the working places, buying software, and other resources.

5. Substantial savings in the salary. Vacation and sick leave are not paid. And when signing contract with the self-employed, you pay no taxes.

6. The opportunity to finish the cooperation at any time, without big sanctions and payoffs, which is impossible while dealing with the employed staff.

7. The opportunity to experiment with different performers, and choose the best for your longterm cooperation.

If you are reading this book and are not a freelancer, but an employer, think about which of your tasks can be passed to freelance today.

If you are a freelancer, before moving on to the next chapter, answer a few questions in writing.

Having studied the pros and cons of freelancing, what do I think? Is this for me?

____________________

____________________

____________________

What exactly attracts me to freelancing? What’s still stopping?

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