How to pivot your freelance creative business in 2023
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Freelancing not going as well as you'd hoped? Then it's time to pivot. We explain how to shift your work and clients in a new direction and give yourself the dream life and career you always hoped for.111
So you've launched your freelance creative business: congratulations! But a few months in, things aren't going as well as you'd hoped. Maybe you're not generating the kind of money you were expecting. Or perhaps you're doing well, but the work is just not thrilling you or giving you the kind of creative fulfilment you were dreaming of. "If I wanted to feel like being on a conveyor belt," you think, "I might as well have stayed in my salaried job."
In which case, maybe it's time to pivot.
A pivot is a tried-and-tested strategy whereby you take a business that just isn't working and turn it in a completely different direction. Often, this involves taking one small aspect of it and making that the focus instead.
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What a pivot looks like
For instance, fun fact: Instagram originally began as a niche social network for lovers of craft beer. One popular feature was the photo-sharing facility, which allowed members to swap shots of foaming pints every time they tried a new tipple. The founders quickly realised they were onto something and made that the entire app. It's now worth a staggering $102 billion.
Here's another example from the golden age of TV sitcoms. In the 1970s, ABC launched a show set in the 1950s called Happy Days. It was originally based around Richie Cunningham, a wholesome teen played by Ron Howard (who later became an Oscar-winning director). But several episodes in, everyone felt the show just wasn't working.
Suddenly, the producers discovered that one of the minor characters – an Italian-American greaser called Fonzie, played by Henry Winkler – was hugely popular. So they reorientated the entire show around him, and it became a massive hit. Two decades later, they performed the same trick, re-engineering Family Matters around the minor character of Steve Urkel. It became one of the highest-rated shows of the 1990s.
You get the idea. Maybe the thing you're doing isn't what you're supposed to be doing. But you don't have to start again from scratch; you just have to pivot.
So, how do you go about it?
The freelance guide to pivoting
If you're a freelance creative, pivoting is pretty straightforward. Either you pivot away from working with clients entirely (for instance, you might have developed a design or productivity tool in the course of your work and decide to focus on marketing and selling it to others). Or, you carry on working with clients but just get different ones. That might sound simple, but the difference it can make is profound.
Getting rid of clients should be pretty straightforward. You simply say goodbye to the clients you hate working with or who demand the kind of work you're sick of doing. However, in reality, this can feel rude and ungrateful. No one likes confrontation. Plus, it's just not in our nature to say goodbye to regular money.
If you can get past these psychological blocks, though, it can transform your life and business. So it's well worth doing, and it's worth doing methodically. Here are our tips on how to pivot away from your least valued freelance clients.
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