The Optimal Freelance Business Model

The optimal freelance business model delivers a high-quality service in the fewest amount of hours. Two things that will tank your freelance career are delivering low-quality work, and spending too many hours doing it. So how do you measure a high-quality service or product? And how many hours is too many?

Let’s break it down. 

A high-quality service is measured by quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data, coming from the word “quantity,” means things you can measure or quantify. Do you deliver on time? Do you deliver the amount you promised? Does your work achieve the results you said it would? Meeting these goals depends on you building in buffer time for mistakes, revisions, and unexpected delays. The experienced freelancer doesn’t promise the world by tomorrow just to win a client. She sets honest expectations with a realistic timeline, and then does all she can to top those. 

High-quality services aren’t only measured by numbers. This is where qualitative data comes in. Coming from the word “quality,” qualitative data means the subjective interpretation of the overall quality of your work. This is your clients’ experience working with you. Do you present yourself in a professional way? Does your work help your client stand out? Does your client enjoy working with you? Meeting these goals means investing extra time and energy into the bells and whistles. The experienced freelancer knows that the client relationship is often a bigger factor in being rehired than the quantitative results–especially in creative fields. 

Finally, how many hours is too many hours? You can think of this like a bell curve with diminishing returns. If you spend one hour working on a client project, maybe it’s only 60% as good as it could be. If you spend 3 hours, maybe it reaches 90% of its potential. Maybe that’s good enough to achieve the quality your client is hoping for. If you spend 10 hours on the project, maybe you can achieve 95% of the project potential. But is tripling your time investment worth the extra 5% boost in quality? When you net out this hypothetical situation, you could deliver 3 projects in 9 hours at 90% quality, or 1 project in 10 hours at 95% quality. The former gets you paid 3 times more, and your clients don’t know the difference. The experienced freelancer knows to vet hours only after the final delivery is made. Then he adjusts his deliverables and rates accordingly. Doing so mid-project leaves a bad taste in clients’ mouth. 

Time and quality management is the trick to successful freelancing. There are no perfect answers here. You have to learn to balance this paradigm on your own, for your own business. The good news is if you’re tracking your hours, and measuring your quality, you’ll find the right balance pretty quickly. 

Good luck out there.