Working for yourself – becoming a freelance PR

In this briefing, Richard Bailey and I look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of becoming a freelance PR and working for yourself.

With contributions from some of our course leaders here at PR Academy who have already made the leap, we offer tips and advice on potential pitfalls.

Working for yourself isn’t for everyone but many who have given it a go have never looked back.

Is it for you? Read on and find out!

How the world of work has changed

In pre-industrial economies, people worked hard by necessity – often in multiple jobs – but careers were rare. This was true in the UK before the industrial revolution and is true today in many developing countries.

Before the introduction of the factory system during the industrial revolution, textiles such as woollen cloth were woven at home in a system known as piece-work. Weavers, often women, were paid by the piece of cloth produced at home. With factories (the automation revolution of the day), workers left their homes to work the hours demanded by their employers for a wage.

Looked at this way, the era of ‘jobs for life’ is not a historical norm, but rather an aberration. It may have been usual in the recent past for people to train as teachers, say, and work in the same field until retirement. But it’s becoming much less usual today. We are returning in post-industrial Britain to a model closer to the pre-industrial model where lines of code, say, can be written by individuals working remotely and contributing to an agile model of software development.

Looked at one way, the so-called gig economy means increasing insecurity and reduced workers’ rights. Looked at from another perspective and it’s enabling a more adaptable economy and greater opportunities for individuals to break free from the shackles of commuting, office hours and the constraints of working 9 to 5.

In public relations, we see many of these trends in sharp relief. Employers, especially agencies, face a constant challenge to recruit and retain talented staff. This means that our sector is exploring many options to gain competitive advantage. This goes beyond now-standard ‘duvet days’ into experiments with a four-day working week (Radioactive PR); with shared employee ownership (Lansons) and with location-agnostic working (Tyto and the PR Network).

Public relations practitioners work closely with journalists, and are aware of trends in the media industry that has led to declining newsroom numbers and an increase in PR freelancing and in transferring over into public relations work.

Very young people are beginning to aspire to this lifestyle over the office work of their parents without the knowledge to calculate that while many can make small amounts of money as micro-influencers, only a few celebrity influencers get to make big bucks in this way. The risk of failure is very high.

Some fun history – profile of a PR freelancer

The origin of the term ‘freelance’ comes from mercenary soldiers in the middle ages. These were hired guns (or, rather, lances) who used their skills and experience to ensure victory in battle and to minimise risks to their personal safety. It does not sound a honourable profession though

One such mercenary, the English knight Sir John Hawkwood, was celebrated in Italy as ‘Giovanni Acuto’ (meaning astute) and has a notable portrait in the Florence Duomo (cathedral). He was what we would now call a celebrity, perhaps similar to a famous footballer transferring allegiances from a home club and finding a greater level of fame with a foreign team.

The traditional profile of a freelance follows this pattern in some respects. Freelances find work because they are skilled and experienced in what they do. They can charge good fees because, not being on the payroll, employers do not have to cover their holiday pay, maternity leave, pension or office costs. They are a flexible resource that can be called on when needed, with none of the complexities surrounding the hiring (and firing) of permanent staff.

Going freelance PR – pros and cons

It has perhaps never been easier (given the low cost of devices and the ubiquity of Wi-Fi) to join the ranks of PR freelancers.

Here are some of the upsides:

• No more commuting or office hours
• No need to commit to fixed costs such as office space and meeting rooms
• Hourly or daily rates sound attractive compared to average salaries
• Opportunity to pick and choose work
• Work can fit around life and other projects
• You have the opportunity to collaborate flexibly with other freelance professionals (designers and developers, say).

But there are downsides, and these tend to be less discussed:

• It can be hard to get started: you’ll need to put yourself out there to find work.
• It’s difficult to say ‘no’ to work unless you’re genuinely overstretched. You’ll have to manage through times of feast and famine.
• Working alone from home can lead to loneliness and isolation.
• There’s a lot of rejection in routine public relations work (lost pitches for new clients; unanswered pitches to journalists and other influencers); you’ll have to shoulder the whole burden yourself, without a team to offer support.
• Chasing unpaid invoices from clients can be time-consuming and professionally challenging. Your ultimate sanction is to refuse to work for them in future, but that’s self-defeating. At the very least, you will face cashflow issues as you will be invoicing in arrears, and larger businesses can be notoriously slow to pay smaller ones.
• You may worry about taking proper holidays. For one thing, you no longer earn while on leave. For another, you don’t know which opportunities will pass you by as a result of being unavailable.
• You not only have to provide a range of services to clients, you have to service your own small business. You have to be your own office manager, your own IT help desk, your own marketing manager and bookkeeper too so your accounts are in order.
• Good employers will push you to progress, and should provide a training plan and budget too. On your own, how will you develop new skills beyond those you already have?

Check out our courses

How can I make being a PR freelancer work?

Kate Cartwright is the co-founder of Generation Social, a company specialising in marketing and social media for B2B sectors, including emerging technology, professional services, and membership organisations. They excel in leveraging LinkedIn for brand building and employee advocacy, collaborating with senior teams at major brands and ambitious business owners.

She studied for her CIPR PR Diploma with PR Academy and now also works as a course leader.

“I love running my own business and having the ability to make key decisions about who we work with and how we tailor our approach to suit the needs of a diverse and evolving range of businesses and individuals.

Having worked in large agencies and in-house at global brands, I understand what matters to clients. Ensuring the delivery of their priorities whilst stretching their thinking will always remain my number one focus.

But when you’re running your own business and managing your own income stream, that alone isn’t enough.

You also need to keep an eye on the future. Where do we want our business to be in six months? Who are we having conversations with today, with the hope of converting them into future projects?

This past year has really highlighted the need to focus on converting leads, especially as the economic backdrop has been particularly challenging.

Where to work?

What’s needed to start up on your own in public relations? You probably already have a decent phone, a functioning laptop and an internet connection.

In theory, you could work from anywhere you can find a good connection. In practice, some of our work is location specific because we need to meet people to develop relationships.

You don’t even have to fix your location before starting out on your own. Business cards and brass plaques are becoming historical artefacts and you’re more likely to need a good presence on social media than an office address in London’s Mayfair or Belgravia.

If the upside of freelance PR life is flexibility, then you should be free to explore your options.

One option is to work from home, perhaps combining this with meetings in coffee shops, but you will need to think about secure internet access, mixing the solitary with a sense of being alone together.

Another is to follow the work. Employers like hiring PR freelancers because they often bring a depth of expertise without the high costs and risks of taking on permanent staff. Those same employers already have their own offices and IT infrastructure. If one of the downsides to working with freelances is their invisibility, then you can reverse that by working from your client’s workspaces. That way you get embedded in the organisation and gain the insights and relationships normally only available to the in-house team.

A third model is to make use of shared workspaces. This gets you out of your house and opens you up to meeting fellow freelance PRs who may have complementary skills: they may be app developers, or web designers or content or SEO specialists with their own new business pipelines. You could share the load of chasing new business by combining your talents and offering a wider range of services to clients.

Finding your niche

In a competitive world, you need to find your niche. What are you known for? What are you good at? Where have you gained experience? What results have you achieved?

Answering these questions (and clients will expect you to do so) forces you into a niche. This strengthens your hand and should enable you to pitch for and win business – and also to charge good fees for your time and services.

Companies hire PR freelances to fill gaps and to complement their teams with specialist expertise. So find your niche: identify where you can claim to be an expert.

The work should follow, but further down the line you’ll discover a problem with your business model.

Let’s say your answer to the questions above was: ‘I’m known as an internal communicator, with well developed skills in collaboration and persuasion. I have worked within the NHS and local government and have a set of industry awards for my work.’

Given this statement, where are you most likely to find work? In internal comms for large public sector organisations. Work follows your specialism.

After several more years of interim contracts for similar organisations, how has your specialism developed? You find work because you’re a specialist, but because you’re a specialist you’re limited in the work you can find.

It only takes a tax change or further public sector funding constraints to restrict your opportunities.

One way to do this would be to offer your expertise to others through offering training or mentoring; or to offer sessions at a university (internal comms and the public sector both appear invisible to most students who mostly start out associating public relations work with external promotions for commercial brands.)

Teaching others is a good way to consolidate your own knowledge and remind you how much you’ve learnt. You may want to turn this knowledge into a book or into academic research.

Another way is to push yourself to acquire new skills and expertise. You’ve said you were an internal comms expert and you cited the industry awards to prove it. But someone will scoff at these and demand some metrics as proof rather than just another subjective (and self-serving) award. So there’s your new potential niche: as an expert in the under-explored field of internal communication monitoring, metrics and evaluation.

Check out our internal comms courses

How to find freelance PR work

Networking, or who you know, is time-consuming and does not scale well. You might be well known in one sector or specialism, but this doesn’t give you any credibility in another. You might be known in one city, but this may count for little in another.

Social networks remove some of these traditional constraints. On the web, the sole trader can appear at first glance as an equal to the international network. On LinkedIn, most of the attention is on the individual rather than the organisation.

There’s value in our networks and in our online presence. This is where most of our work will come from, at least in the early years as a freelance.

So try to maintain good relationships with previous clients, past employers and former colleagues. They are your network and they can provide work, contacts and recommendations.

But we all need to refresh our networks and seek new opportunities. To do this, you will need to apply some public relations strategy to your own brand.

One approach is to devote some of your spare capacity to building your online presence through your blog and social media. Just as you’d recommend this approach to a client, so you need your own content plan for engaging content and thought leadership pieces that enable you to join conversations and develop (or rekindle) relationships. That way you hope to be front of mind when work is being offered.

If this still isn’t enough, then you need to turn to outside help.

Recruitment consultants are mostly incentivised to place candidates into permanent roles. If you’re genuine about remaining freelance and avoiding permanent jobs, you might assume they’re not for you. But the best recruitment consultants are well connected and they may be aware of more openings than you are. You may be the ideal candidate for one of those maternity cover roles that demand a specialist for a few months.

How to charge for your PR freelancer services

What should you charge? There will be some fixed-term contract work offered to you on a non-negotiable basis, but more often you will be expected to price your services.

Price yourself too high and you may find less work. Price yourself too low and you may find that work doesn’t pay. Besides, competing on price is no way to build a strong reputation. Keep in mind, too, that it’s easier to reduce your prices (who is going to complain?) than to raise them later.

So, let’s assume that you want to be competitive and that you also want the work to pay and freelancing to be sustainable.

Your start point should be your target salary. If you’ve been in full-time employment, you will have a target salary that you want to reach as an independent.

For the sake of talking figures, let’s say your target salary for year one as a freelance is £50,000.

An employee would earn this salary over the whole year, including their periods of paid leave or sickness absences. As a freelance, you only earn when you work (or, more precisely, when you’re paid for your work). So you need to earn enough to cover the gaps and to ride out slow periods.

You also have to pay for your own office and IT costs, though these may be much less than you’ll be saving on commuting to and from a regular place of work.

So let’s say your target is to earn for 48 weeks of the year (52 weeks minus four for leave or sickness or training absences). You can’t assume to work flat out each week either, since you have to provide your own marketing, your own business development pipeline, your own office management, your own IT support and your own basic bookkeeping. So let’s say you target three paid days a week for 48 weeks. That’s 144 days to earn £50,000, suggesting a day rate of almost £350, or an hourly rate of about £50.

If that sounds too high, then consider this. You’re unlikely to meet the client who will offer you more than you ask, but there will be many who will offer you less. There may be occasions when you’re willing to work for less than your target, and there are some good reasons why you should consider doing so:

• It’s a new client or team or project that you’re excited by
• It offers you a new opportunity to learn and it may open more doors
• They’re offering you more work or a longer-term contract

Keep in mind, though, that there’s an ‘opportunity cost’ to accepting a full-time interim role. You will have limited time to retain or develop other work strands, meaning that you may be left without work at the end of the contract period.

One more thought: you should consider dynamic pricing. You may be offered work that you’re unwilling or unable to take on. Simply saying ‘no’ to the request may mean you close that door forever. So one professional approach is to pitch for this business but at a much higher price than you would usually charge (let’s say you double your notional day rate to £700). If you are declined or unsuccessful, you at least emerge with an enhanced reputation (you must be good if you can charge that much!). If you are successful, then you have to go figure how to service this new business, but the additional money provides your compensation and increases your options (you may be able to sub-contract some or all of it).

The loneliness of the long distance worker

We’re a social species. One reason people like to work is that the workplace provides a ready-made community of like- minded people, a surrogate family complete with cake on birthdays.

Redundancy, retirement, long-term sickness all involve a withdrawal from this community and many people find they miss it and take time to readjust.

Why should it be any different when you choose (or have forced upon you) a period of independent work?

Sure, you might set out with a rosy view of being liberated from office hours and the daily commute, but you can quickly find your bedroom or home office to be a form of solitary confinement. The problem is, ours is a gregarious business.

Many PR agencies, with their young age profile, provide a buzzing environment in which even the more introverted among us are encouraged to put ourselves and our ideas out there. Besides, there’s always someone understanding to share your successes and frustrations.

If you’re working alone at home, you confront the ups and the downs on your own. That takes resilience.

How I make it work

Maud Davis is an independent PR trainer and mentor working with PR Academy, CIPR and University of the Arts. She is course leader for the CIPR PR Certificate.

Maud says:

“I am a people person and one of the big things for me is finding ways to be with others both virtually and in person. My tips are:

• If you miss being with colleagues, try co-working as it’s a great way to meet other freelance or flexible workers.
• Join a professional body and keep your knowledge and skills up to date by signing up to events, joining sector groups and participating in mentoring by seeking and being a mentor.
• Set aside time to build and develop relationships on LinkedIn. It’s a great way to speak to others in your industry and to stay on top what’s happening. I’ve found people value sharing their experience and are really open to being asked for help and advice.
• Schedule regular check-ins with like-minded people – Teams and Zoom have made this really easy to do.
• To improve your productivity, get out of the house and connect with nature. I’ve replaced my morning commute with a 20-minute walk at the start and end of every working day. It means there is a clear start and end to my working from home day.
• Missing the hum of an office? I’ll listen to podcasts or have a radio on in the next room – it works for me!

Getting paid

You’ve completed your agreed work project. The client is happy. So you invoice for your time. Even if all goes smoothly, the invoice is the start of an internal process within the client that takes time (30 days is usual). So the best possible outcome for your cashflow is that you work at your own time and expense in month one and will get paid at the end of month two.

This can work satisfactorily if the invoice is duly paid and if you’re receiving payment for other work.

But unpaid invoices take time and emotional labour to chase. Your ultimate sanction in the case of difficulty can be self-defeating: you either have to refuse to work for this company again, or you go public in naming and shaming them (same result), or you take them to the small claims court (see above). Sometimes, you’ll have to write off work and invoices because the relationship has broken down and because you need to focus on new projects. This is why your day rate needs to be high enough so that you avoid working for very tight margins.

Check if your client runs a purchase order system and, if so, make sure they raise one for the work you are doing and make sure that your invoice matches it exactly otherwise it may not be paid straight away.

You could learn a pricing lesson from experienced tradespeople. You could consider, with a new client, increasing your day rate to say, £400 – but offering a 10% prompt payment discount if settled within 30 days. That’s a potential win- win: the client is offered a discount, and you earn £360 for the day (more than your target £350).

A word about pensions. That’s another employee benefit that you may be losing. As your own employer, it’s now your responsibility to provide for your own personal pension.

• Will you put money aside for when times are lean or to cover holidays and sickness?
• Keep good records. There are lots of very easy to use systems where you can keep copies of receipts, generate invoices etc.
• Talk to your bank about the benefits of their business bank accounts – they may also run course for people setting up a business.
• Get an accountant – ask for recommendations, go and meet them – you will be their client and you need to make sure the relationship is going to work.

Contracts and insurance

Everyone starts a new relationship with good intentions. This is as true in business and in life. The pitching process to match clients to PR teams involves plenty of promises on both sides (at the outset, everyone is on their best behaviour and trying to impress). But is that a firm foundation for a lasting relationship? How will you manage when things become more challenging, when things go wrong, or when invoices go unpaid?

Best practice is to ‘get it in writing’ in the form of a contract that should cover the description of the services to be provided and cover cancellation arrangements for both parties. You may need to seek legal advice, but you could also check out advice offered by the PRCA or the CIPR.

A Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) may be needed if you will have access to commercially sensitive information.

You may be asked by clients to show that you have professional indemnity insurance. This will cover your legal fees if you are claimed to have provided inadequate services or advice that has caused the client to lose money or caused reputational damage. Other risks areas in the client-consultant relationship are over breaches of confidentiality, breach of copyright and lost or damaged documents. This insurance should provide some protection and reassurance, but it may also be a requirement of working with some organisations.

Freelance practitioners are by definition small businesses and you may feel that your advice and services provide a low risk to your clients, so insurance cover is available from just a few pounds a month. But remember, it’s inconsistent to win a client by telling them you will be providing advice that’s vital to their business while maintaining that your services are low risk and inconsequential.

 

How I make it work

Jonathan Cross runs People, Words and Pictures which he set up in 2008. It’s an award-winning public relations consultancy, providing high quality editorial and strategic communications.

Jonathan is the course tutor for the PR Academy’s CIPR Foundation Award.

Jonathan says: If you are thinking of going freelance, here are some things you may wish to consider:

• Your business set-up: would you work entirely in a freelance capacity or combine it with other forms of employment, such as a part-time in-house role(s)?
• Your business plan: before going solo, write a business plan, identifying potential clients and sources of income

• Teaming up: do you have good contacts who could work for you as associates and, in turn, who you might be able to work for?
• The numbers: what business model (sole trader, limited business), VAT-registered, have you contracted an accountant?
• Your CPD: how do you plan to continue your professional learning?
• Success: what would success look like for you? Income? Family flexibility? Career goals?

In summary

We hope you’ve found this freelance PR briefing useful – we don’t have all the answers but we hope we’ve given you some things to think about.

If you go for it, let us know!

Useful links

UK Government website “Working for yourself”

UK Government, Understanding off-payroll working (IR35)

CIPR Independent Practitioner Network

The PRCA

The PR Cavalry, PR freelance match making service