Income Generating Activity
At one sales training seminar I attended as part of the on-going development of my production company, I was advised that as a business owner I should be doing between an hour and three hours of income-generating activity every day. That’s not the work that you get paid to do, that’s the work you do to make sure you win work to get paid for.
In the case of a creative freelancer, it’s not the work done design, animating, editing, producing or directing. It’s the work done to make sure you have a project to work on. It’s researching production companies. Sending out emails. Making calls. Whichever actions you take to find work.
As a freelancer, you’re really, really lucky if you finish one job on the Friday and start the next on the Monday. Usually, there’s a week, maybe two between each contract. Over the year, you’ll spend, say six to eight weeks not working. Statutory holiday entitlement in the UK is 5.6 weeks. That means you have 2.4 weeks not working but not on holiday either. This time needs to be spent working on your career. Going on training courses, writing up your CV, updating your showreel attending networking sessions, staying in touch with contacts. This is how you increase your likelihood of staying in work.
You should spend at least half-an-hour every day doing something that assists in the process of finding new work. Making contacts. Contributing to relevant discussion boards on LinkedIn. Looking for a few opportunities. Updating your online CV and showreel. Keeping track of companies on Facebook. Looking out for opportunities on Twitter. This time will accumulate over your current contract, meaning you’ll be ready to rock when your contract ends, and you’ll have a whole raft of warm contacts ready to help you get your new job.