Portrait of a Freelancer: Frederic Harper
<p><strong>Portrait of a freelancer - </strong>Meet inspiring people who chose to make a living out of independent work. Through a very human perspective, discover their story, and the uniqueness of their lifestyle & challenges.</p>
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<p><strong>Who are you?</strong><br>
My name is Frederic Harper. I’m a 34-year-old freelance marketer for technology companies (also a former software developer). Living in Montréal, Canada, I’ve been in the domain for more than a decade, the biggest part of it as a technical evangelist for international companies like Microsoft and Mozilla.</p>
<p><strong>How did you get into freelancing?</strong><br>
A few months ago, I was working as a full-time employee at a local startup, helping them reach out their audience: web developers. Unfortunately, there was a major shift in the company vision and my role was abolished. To be honest, the backup plan was to look for a new corporate job, but after a long reflection about my career, I decided it was the perfect moment to start my own micro-business: No lion is born king.</p>
<p><strong>What is the hardest part about freelancing?</strong><br>
The hardest part for me is to strike the good balance between work and play. I heard numerous stories about freelancers who are working a lot more since they left the payroll. Part of the decision of being my own boss was to work less and concentrate on my personal life. The problem is like most jobs I previously had, I love what I’m doing and my clients, which means it’s easy for me to work more than I would like. Kind of a first-world problem, huh?</p>
<p><strong>Tell us about your daily routine.</strong><br>
If I don’t have any meetings or events, my daily routine is actually pretty standard. After the breakfast, shower and meditation (something new for me), I make a coffee or tea, depending on the mornings. I start the day by prioritizing my tasks, and how much time I have (in my case, how many pomodoros can I do – see the pomodoro technique). Right before jumping into the important tasks of the day, I check my social media accounts and emails. After that, I try to minimize my interactions and distractions during the day to focus on delivering quality results for my clients.</p>
<p>Since I mostly work from home, after lunch I usually go take a walk in my neighbourhood. When it’s possible, I’m trying to put my meetings in the afternoon, when it’s harder for mostly everyone to concentrate: note that it doesn’t mean I’m having non-productive meetings, but it’s easier to have tasks involving interactions with people in those periods. Before the end of my work day, I check my social media accounts and emails again, which should be the second time of the day (if everything goes as planned – not always the case). I used to receive all notifications and reply on the spot, which isn’t that effective…</p>
<p>Once I’m done, I walk out of the office, and I don’t go back until the next day.</p>
<p><strong>Do you have any freelancing horror story?</strong><br>
It’s my second time as a freelancer, the first one was a couple of years ago, as a software developer. My last experience wasn’t a good one. I was missing a lot of crucial assets to be able to do my job and I was only able to get them small pieces at the time. During that time, the client was not happy about me as I wasn’t delivering the results I should have been delivering. At some point, I decided to let this client go, reimburse him and not give him any of the work done. It was the best decision ever of my short freelance career, even if I lost some money in the process. I now have a clause that specify that I’m not responsible for delays if I don’t have everything I need to make the magic happen!</p>
<p><strong>How many projects do you handle concurrently?</strong><br>
It will depend on the type of work and period of the year. Right now, I work for two clients, but it’s not a fifty-fifty timeshare and it’s not usually like this. Since my work doesn’t involve fixed hours for a predetermined period of time, I deal with the ups and downs of projects, which is totally fine with me.</p>
<p><strong>What is your favorite aspect of the freelancing life?</strong><br>
The best aspect of being a freelancer is freedom. Being able to choose the projects and clients I want to work with is priceless. I decided not to do crazy hours, and even if I try to keep a daily routine, I work when I feel productive. If it’s not working on a Wednesday at 2PM, I’m done: I stop working instead of losing my time and creating subpar work. Obviously, this freedom comes with a cost, but the pros clearly outweighs the cons.</p>
<p><strong>What are the online tools that you couldn’t live without?</strong><br>
Will I get a free lifetime account if I say Momenteo? Jokes aside, I think I’m using too many tools for my own good, but I couldn’t live without these: Todoist, Google Apps, Evernote and Pocket.</p>
<p><strong>How did you get your first client?</strong><br>
My first client is the founder of a company that I discovered a few months ago. He wanted to hire me, but at that time, I didn’t know if I wanted to take a job or go back to the freelance world. As I decided to go on my own, they were the first to trust me, and bought a bank of hours. It’s another proof that you never know who can be a client, now, or in the future: they easily could have been annoyed by the fact that I declined the job offer.</p>
<p><strong>Can you show us a bit of what you do?</strong><br>
Since my job is to help companies becoming the king of their jungle (remember the name of my company, no lion is born king – I know, it’s cheesy), most of my work is intangible (tactics, strategies, plans).</p>
<p>You can still get an idea of what I can do by looking at my public speaking page, my book on personal branding or my personal (read, not corporate) blog. Feel free to check <a href="http://nolionisbornking.com">nolionisbornking.com</a> for more information.</p>
<p><strong>Last thing, what would you recommend to aspiring freelancers?</strong><br>
If you want to do it, there is no better time than now. If it ends up working, you’ll love the new lifestyle, of not, there is nothing wrong with ending this journey and going back to the payroll. Go get ’em (checks!), Tiger!</p>
I like building cool products and marketing them.