Dependable Freelance Business Model - Sample Spreadsheets

Yesterday, I wrote about how to develop a dependable freelance business model. If you haven’t read that one yet, check it out, because today we’re diving into some sample numbers so you can see how this all works. 

The Sample Spreadsheet

Check out the sample spreadsheet here. You can feel free to copy this spreadsheet into your own account and arrange it for your own purposes. I built equations in that automatically multiply your rates by the number days, and add all your rates into a total. This is designed to be a monthly view of projects, and duplicated every month. 

I’ve developed 2 sample freelancers in this sheet. One is a copywriter, the other is a producer. You can see the different samples by clicking on the tabs at the bottom of the sheet. There are 2 months for each freelancer. 

Retainer Clients

You can see in my sample spreadsheets, both the producer and the copywriter have retainer clients. These retainers are enough to cover rent and some monthly bills. January was a big month for both the producer and the copywriter, but February was a pretty slim month. In both cases, their retainers brought in the same amount of income, dependably. 

Retainer income is an important balance to manage. If you have too few retainers, you’ll be stressing about monthly expenses. If you have too many retainers, you won’t have many days remaining to score high-profit projects. You’ll need to decide what your risk tolerance is with consistent monthly income. 

Personally, I prefer having just enough retainer income to cover my most basic expenses, so I can have as many days as possible free to try and land one-off projects and owned projects. If your risk tolerance is lower, you’ll want to score more retainer clients so if one of them drops you you still have your expenses covered. I know some people who have very little, or no retainer income. Choose a monthly number that makes you the most sustainably motivated. 

One-Off Projects

In my sample spreadsheet, both the copywriter and the producer score one-off projects. Some of these are booked at an all-in rate, and some of them are booked at a day rate. You can see that for both the copywriter and the producer, these projects bring a much higher profit margin.

When negotiating one-off projects, always remember your retainer income. If your monthly expenses are covered, you can to stick to your guns when negotiating rates. If a client tries to lowball you, you can confidently say no. This is always scary at first. Are you leaving money on the table by saying no? Overwhelmingly, what I hear from other freelancers is that when they raise their rates and stick to them, they make more money. Most brands, frankly, don’t know that many freelancers, so when the rubber hits the road, they’ll still hire you. 

A few important things you need to do to grab one-off projects is staying on people’s minds, and asking for referrals. Send out occasional check-in emails to your key connects at brands, agencies, and production companies. You don’t need to sell anything here, just remind people that you’re cool and available. Asking for referrals might seem like an awkward thing to do, but if you have a good relationship with someone, they’ll be happy to help. Most of the time, as a producer, I’m so head-down in my projects that I don’t think to refer anyone. Whenever a trusted freelancer reaches out, it takes me all of 5 minutes to scan my email and rack my brain to connect them with someone. 

Owned Projects

In the sample spreadsheet, both the copywriter and the producer score big owned projects in January. These big projects are rare, but they have the opportunity to make a solid rate by doing a majority of the work, and keeping a slice off the top of each contractor they hire to do the other work. 

A great way to manage your schedule when following this business model is to find and pitch owned projects on all the days you aren’t working on retainers and one-offs. These might be few and far between, but at a rate over $10k, even just 1 owned project per quarter could drastically change your situation. 

As a freelancer, you may not be totally queued into a big ticket pitch process. Be sure to bring your A-game, and dress everything up as well as you can. So much of this is perception, so make sure you’re presenting a premium package with a quality feel. 

Closing

Thanks for reading these past 2 blogs. I know they’re a bit longer than my usual, but I felt like I really hit something special and helpful here. If this has been helpful to you, be sure to share it with any other freelancers you know. It would be very helpful to me! 

Good luck out there.