Today’s question comes from Shelley at our live recording at Being Boss Miami about what is the difference between a “freelancer” and a “business owner,” and how to know when to make the shift in how you label yourself.
Emily Thompson 0:00
Hello and welcome to being boss. For this minisode we got a question live from one of our Miami bosses.
Emily Thompson 0:14
Hey bosses, Kathleen and I are honored to be speaking at venture pop a conference for creative entrepreneurs in New Orleans in September. That's right again, Evelyn and I are hitting the Crescent City, my very favorite city again, and we're hoping that you will join us. Venture pop is a two day conference held September 17 and 18th. Designed to gather creatives with the guts and grit to grow their business sounds like a place for bosses. To me. purchasing a ticket for venture pop is more than an excuse for a lively weekend in New Orleans. It's an investment in you and your business. Join us for two days of influential speakers and activities built to invigorate and educate and probably a couple of sizer acts to find your community grow your business To learn more visit being boss club slash venture pop. We hope to see you there.
Shelly Easter 1:05
Hello, I'm Shelly Easter. I'm a graphic and web designer and developer. And my question is the difference between freelancing and having a business? So I used to always describe myself as freelancer. But recently I've kind of thinking, I guess I have a business. But is there a hard line? Is there? Is it just a mindset? Or what would you say?
Emily Thompson 1:32
Fresh books?
Kathleen Shannon 1:36
Get up here? Can you define your dream customer for us? When you say freelancer, what do you mean by that?
Shelly Easter 1:45
Right like cuz you said I don't actually freelance. Like when you were talking? Yeah, like, well, what is the difference? Okay, if there is one, we got this doctors aren't like, Oh, I'm a freelance doctor.
Kathleen Shannon 1:56
That's right. Some of them are though, you know, like traveling doctors that will like go to their is that would they be freelance technically.
Shelly Easter 2:05
But would they say, Hey, I freelance as a doctor. Traveling designer,
Kathleen Shannon 2:14
concierge, concierge medicine. That's why Aaron gets paid the big bucks.
Shelly Easter 2:22
So I'm a concierge graphic design your
Kathleen Shannon 2:26
new title? What is that? Okay, so Shelly is asking what is the difference between being a freelancer and a business owner? And is it a mindset shift. And I think that is a big part of it. I think a big difference between feeling like a freelancer and a business owner is simply going from being an order taker to an expert. So whenever I was freelancing, I really thought you can hire me for $400 to lay out a direct mail piece that would never go in my portfolio, I'm not going to take you through my process. I'm just going to put some type biography on a piece of paper and collect my check. Like that's kind of how I think of freelancing. But I don't think that that's always the case at all. But that's like the mindset shift that I had to make and how I had to change the label for myself, to feel more of like a creative expert, that I have a process that I go through every single time, even creating a process for being boss around the pillars and the topics that we talk about kind of made starting a podcast feel more like a business than a hobby. And so creating really structure around my offering is what made me feel like a business owner versus a freelancer. That said, I know some amazing kick ass top level professionals who do consider themselves freelancers, who are still pretty strict about the work that they'll take on. And they're just not bothered by the title. And I think that the title doesn't give them any sort of limitations around what they're doing. So I think for you, it might just be thinking Shelley about what kinds of limitations Do you feel like the word Freelancer gives you? But also maybe what kind of freedom does that word give you does giving just calling yourself a business owner, make you feel more limited or paralyzed? You know, maybe if being a freelancer, in fact, gives you more freedom to try a bunch of different things. So I do think it is just a mindset shift. And I don't think that either is good or bad.
Emily Thompson 4:33
Done. No. I mean, I think you're spot on there. I it certainly is. It certainly is a mindset shift. And it's one that like, I almost see going like a step. It's a mindset shift, but it is also like what you're actually doing, I would imagine a freelancer would kind of be more, more open to taking whatever comes their way. Like especially I feel like you start out as a freelancer. Like whenever you like start doing your own thing, like you're just gonna sort of take Whatever comes your way until you start finding that niche. And then once you once you get like this definition to what you do, and you're you've created this process that you're using over and over again, I do feel like you become a little more of a business or you like you've created that at that point of business or freelancer. And I can be wrong. Like, this is just my opinion, a freelancer is just doing it. And a business owner has done it and has a structure around it. And then like a step further, is the entrepreneur like it's the person who's going to grow it. Because you can be a business owner, I think and not have even like the entrepreneurial mindset like you are, you're not trying to do extra marketing or you're not trying to grow a team and not that you need to do those things to be an entrepreneur, but you're not like doing the next things you can just stay in your thing. And I remember whenever I had my tanning salon back in the day, there was a there was a guy
Kathleen Shannon 5:57
I know I love Emily's you just yesterday I was like Edgar tanning salon Did you have like those little heart stickers or like the Playboy bunny? Yeah,
Emily Thompson 6:07
the Playboy bunny was the most popular. But But next door to us, we had this guy who owned a shoe store, and he had owned the shoe store for, I don't know, 30 years. And it was a kid shoe store. And him and his wife ran it. And I think he had a couple of like high school kids that worked for him. And he was a business owner, but he was not an entrepreneur, like he was doing the same things every single day, and not needing to grow more than what he needed to survive as he was. So I think like, that's like three levels of the mindset like freelance, like you are totally free to do what you want and like, and take whatever projects come your way and change up your process whenever you want. Whenever you become a business owner, you have these processes in place, and you have these guidelines that you'd like to adhere to, you have this specific type of customer that you that you want to work with. And then once you want to throw a wrench in that and do crazy shit, like then you're an entrepreneur and you're playing with things and you're trying to figure out new ways of accomplishing things are growing, and scaling. You talk about things like loss leaders, and you you really get into that like growth mindset. So I think it's a progression. I think you start as a freelancer just sort of like free for all like, do you want let's get this started. And I think as you begin to define and refine, you become a business owner, because at that point, you've built a business. And then if you want to go to the next step, and you don't have to my my shoe neighbor was doing really well for himself. But if you want to do more things, and if you have the entrepreneurial spirit that's never going to be calm with what you're doing, then you can take it to the next level to
Kathleen Shannon 7:46
Shelley, Did that answer your question? Do you feel like a freelancer business owner? I feel like Yeah, okay. I also think there's something about the Hang on. I also think that there's something to being a business owner and establishing those processes that make it easier to train and hire and hand off to someone else. Like I think that maybe that for me in my mind is the difference between a freelancer and a business owner is that the business is something that you could hand off or sell or that kind of starts to have a personality of its own and that can kind of run itself if it had to.
Emily Thompson 8:25
Did you like this minisode Be sure to check us out on our website at being boss dot club. There you can find more from being boss including our full episodes, minisodes and blog posts. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our mailing list so that you can get access to behind the scenes and exclusive content from Kathleen and myself to help you be more boss in your work and life. Do the work be boss
