Advice To New Freelancers From Germany’s Freelance Unlocked Conference

A few weeks ago, Freelance Unlocked brought together 500 mostly tech oriented freelancers from across Germany and elsewhere. Over two sunny Berlin days, freelancers talked a wide range of issues from government actions to grow your business.

On the minds of many new and recent freelancers attending: how to attract good clients and more interesting work.

It’s a frustrating environment for many with inflation and recession worries creating a challenging near term outlook. While the Human Cloud Quarterly Freelance Trend Tracker shows that freelancers feel the long term success of freelancing is assured, timing is everything! Surveys from Malt and MBO Partners both cite broad freelancer confidence but individual success is not ordained.

According to recent studies, 60% of freelancers feel successful, 40% do not. Freelancing is still very much a tale of diverging career experiences.

Here’s what we know. Successful freelancers are focused. They invest in building client relationships and expanding their network. They earn stronger and continuing client demand because of their technical expertise and professional skills, enjoy greater choice of clients and projects, and benefit from stronger pricing power. These freelancers are ready for prime time.

By contrast, less successful freelancers struggle to find good, well-paying, client opportunities. They haven’t established a clear reputation for an in-demand specialty skill, and lack a strong network, are often frustrated with the gigs they win and feel pressured to accept a lower fee than their time and expertise should command. These freelancers are not ready for prime time.

How do you get ready for prime time?

The question was discussed in a workshop of 50 tech freelancers at Freelance Unlocked. Here are some high points of what they discussed.

1. The first year is tough and demanding

All workshop freelancers readily acknowledged the first year of freelancing can be massively frustrating. The Agile Talent Global Survey on Freelancing noted that many early stage freelancers leave freelancing to return to fulltime employment.

Why do newbies exit freelancing? Workshop members pointed to four factors:

• Income volatility (insufficient or too variable).
• Attraction of employees benefits like vacation pay and easier access to services.
• Fear of loneliness.
• Discomfort with the reputation of freelancing

Successful early stage freelancers make two decisions: First, they decide to continue to freelance full or part-time. And second, they commit to mastering freelance fundamentals, enjoying the benefit of learning the ropes.

2. Lots to learn

German workshop colleagues mentioned many areas where new freelancers need commercial knowledge. Though expert technically, they must also learn to run a business. One workshop participant noted, “It’s hard for new freelancers without access to lots of information.” Joining a talent marketplace, or a subscription based service like Collective or Wethos, meets some but not all of these needs:

• · Services offered
• · Work permits; government requirements
• Website? Profile?
• Whether and what talent marketplace to join
• Pricing, contracting, and billing clients
• How and where to advertise; what conferences, associations
• Staying up-to-date technically
• Network building and maintaining relationships

For example: “Make sure your online presence is up to date and attractive. Many of us add regularly to our Facebook or Linkedin profile, but don’t edit often enough. Is your online profile helping or hurting your effort to find work and income? Hunt Scanlon put it this way, “Be sure you have a photo of yourself that shows a confident, pleasant appearance. No cute pictures to be clever … Our world is in a state of confusion, so look like you are ready to handle the task. Focus your message and profile to attract a person that can hire you.”

3. Mentorship

Workshop members opined about the importance of mentorship, as a recent article summarized their view : “What we do know is that to succeed you need to have a mentor, coach, and sponsor.” The author goes on:

“A mentor is someone who talks with you about your career, goals, plans, and aspirations. They help you refine your plan, suggest people you should talk to, opportunities you should partake in, and obstacles you should be aware of. Mentors usually take on two major roles. They help with your career, and with the psycho-social needs such as motivating and inspiring you toward your next milestone or goal.”

Mentors aren’t easy to come by, chemistry matters, and so does alignment. German workshop colleagues reflected on different mentoring needs over time. A gifted mentor for early career professionals may be less so with others.

An alternative is organizing mentoring groups or hackathons.

Mentoring groups are just that, a small group one turns to for guidance. An advisory board for businesses of one. A mentoring hackathon brings the group together for a specific problem or opportunity. What’s most important is follow up: specific takeaways, and communicating your plans, follow up, and thanks to hackathon colleagues.

4. Knowing and owning your superpower

One workshop exercise was revealing: “Imagine a conversation with a potential client.” they were asked, “What makes you the right choice for this work?” Only a third of participants were able to confidently and concisely answer the question.

Do you know your superpower, the combination of expertise, experience, and style that determines how clients respond? You need a succinct, accurate, and self-appreciative way to describe yourself, and your contribution to client’s need.

You need reinforcing work examples and strong and relevant references to make your case convincingly. But your ability to confidently articulate your superpower is what makes it persuasive.

Think of your superpower as a burrito, expertise wrapped in a business mindset. Freelancers often have trouble thinking of themselves as a business. It might feel to some a slight sell-out, and there is certainly something historically counter-cultural about freelancing. Besides, we know from research that freelancers are often uncomfortable selling and marketing themselves.

But your job is business. Your clients are customers not friends. They pay for an outcome, not a relationship. They want the work done well, completed expeditiously, and managed professionally. If you succeed they will want to work more with you, and you must have a goal for the client relationship as well as your work interests.

If you don’t think of yourself as a business, and act from a business mindset, you are less likely to be successful.

Approximately 40% of American workers have a side-gig; they moonlight to make extra money, build their skills, or pursue a passion. These individuals are “freelance lite”. They have a portfolio career and think of themselves as a business with multiple income streams and customers. They see their primary employer as a client and working relationship more peer than hierarchical. That’s why so many tech professionals quit rather than return fulltime to the office.

If you think of yourself as a business, you will more naturally communicate why potential clients uniquely benefit from your expertise, experience, and style. It is the best foundation to align your message, market yourself, and build client and colleague relationships.

But remember, your performance must prove your contentions and lift your brand.

5. Tend to your network

Workshop freelancers explained the importance of referrals and relationships. The data is supportive. For example, almost half of European interim manager assignments came from referral.

Good networks enable scale and leverage, making freelancers better able to work on multiple projects, and attract larger, more complex, work as part of a team. Three platforms – Ollo, Indie List, and Uncompany – successfully banded together to win a significant, global relationship. Human Cloud teamed up with Teamera to create the Quarterly Freelance Trend Tracker. And so on.

Effective networkers are gardeners. Relationship building is a deliberate art requiring patience and dedicated time. A good professional network has a rich mix of people whom you enjoy, who will help you, teach you, work with you, and encourage your success.

Networks are fed through collaboration and communication. Who do you regularly speak with weekly, monthly, or quarterly?

Tending to your network also extends to clients. Catalant is a best practice in “demand planning.” Catalant team members, frequently joined by CEO Pat Petitti, reach out to their clients semi-annually, often visiting on site. “What will you be working on and needing help in the months ahead,” they ask. “If we can help, we’ll make sure you have the talent.” It’s a great way to show client appreciation, set up future work, and reinforce the relationship by talking up how Catalant is growing and improving.

6. Change never ends

The final recommendation of workshop attendees: “Plan on change never ending and always surprising you.”

Summary

Thanks to workshop attendees! Freelance Unlocked’s success is already motivating similar events around the globe. Freelance Unlocked 2025 is already in planning, and a similar conference in Spain is taking shape led by Outvise and other Spanish platforms.

With so many new full and part-time freelancers joining the freelance revolution, these opportunities to bring freelancers together for mutual support and professional development are most welcome. And, for early stage freelancers, the advice of German workshop participants could not be more timely or helpful.

Viva la revolution!