Er… What freelance magazines? There are freelance magazines? Please enlighten me.

1) what is a big problem for a freelancer is when the market is dead, literally dead. Then someone as a very average employee may have a chance to stay even if there are layoffs, while almost all contractors are out of work. They will always as priority retrain employees even if they have absolutely no knowledge and layoff all contractors/consultants (i have seen it in some companies). It is the “temporary resource” side of contracting which i do not like.

2) another issue is overspecialisation and overexperienced.
When you are very specialised with lots of experience you have to normally to ask decent rates (at least more than junior people), the problem is that many clients prefer to hire JUNIOR people with no experience for various reasons. Sometimes its even. Simply there is only a very small market for senior experienced people. This is someway a marketing issue. Furthermore if you have very specialised skills, you have to travel a lot or work very long time for the same client (then its better to be an employee). Also do not believe the bullshit in freelance magazines.

As you said, economy rises and falls, it’s a part of the cycle and the trick is to weather the storm. If you reflect on past history of ‘depressions’ you’ll notice that over the long term we always come out ahead. That is the thing to remember.

In the now it’s important to “Maintain Fundamentals” and “Go Back To Basics”. These might sound similar but are two differing practices.

Maintaining your fundamentals is all about taking care of the little details. Keep up with your book keeping (even if it’s a little bleak), be dogged about invoicing, keep sending out queries, and continue to do the day to day activities that make up your usual business practice. Just because times are tough does not mean you need to make dramatic changes to the things that work and will continue to work.

Getting back to basics however is about going simple. Did you upgrade to a 20 gig download plan on your internet? Cut back, you can live without the latest episode of Heroes and can save a chunk of cash on a lower plan. Did you get into the habit of having a rich slab of steak each week? Nothing wrong with Bangers and Mash! Honestly, we spend so much cash on luxury items because we learn to live in a higher income bracket. If you get back to basics for the time being you could save a great deal of money and find yourself financially well off when the fog of economic breakdown lifts.

I’m sure there are many other ideas that help get us through the tough times in a tighten your belt economy. Now is the perfect time to reflect and take action on them.