Freelancing

By Luke Boggs

Oh to be free

Forget corporate
Here’s to working for yourself in the age of free agents.

Cecil Sharp hasn’t been traditionally employed in years—and his career just keeps getting better. The now 45-year-old Atlanta professional left his last regular job in late 2001 and started working for himself. Today, he can’t believe he didn’t go out on his own earlier.

CA creative communications consultant specializing in event design and execution, Sharp had done the corporate thing. A decade ago, he was working full time for a Fortune 100 company, leading an internal communication team.

Now, as president and creative director of TSG Creative Inc., Sharp is a company of one, putting his experience to work for a variety of corporate clients. And he couldn’t be happier. “I love what I do and how I do it,” he says. “It’s like going to a new job every day—with new people, new challenges and new opportunities to use my various skills.”

Part of a growing trend

Sharp is not alone in trading in his corporate ID card for his own personal shingle—particularly among creative types. Author Daniel H. Pink described the emerging boom in project-based self-employment in his influential 2001 bestseller Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working For Yourself.

Today, Pink says the trend continues to strengthen. “Lifetime employment is over,” he explains. “It doesn’t make much economic sense for someone to lash his or her fortunes to a company forever.” Not only is corporate loyalty on the wane, but Pink also notes that the average lifespan of corporations is shrinking even as people are living longer.

In addition, in a broadly affluent society, people are looking for more than a paycheck when they go to work. “They want a sense of purpose and meaning and significance,” Pink says. “And a lot of people say these things are easier to find when they work for themselves.”

Putting technology to work

Modern technology is a critical enabler for free agents, according to Pink. In an era of anytime-anywhere connectivity, he says, “Individuals now have as much computing and communications firepower as whole companies might have had 15 years ago.”

Sharp agrees. “I use pretty much every piece of popular technology out there to stay in touch with my clients at all times,” he says. “It’s amazing what you can get done with a cellphone and a Blackberry.”

“I’ve got to have the latest and greatest,” Sharp continues, admitting that he sometimes gets ahead of the curve in adopting new high-tech tools. “I may waste a little money on technology, but that’s better than gambling or buying shoes, right?”

A new view of risk

While some still consider it risky to go into business for oneself, Pink says many people moving into the world of free agency today are doing so to diversify their own human capital as they would their investments. This helps protect them from being overly dependent on the long-term health of a single company, thereby gaining more control of their financial future.

“People aren’t just leaping into the great unknown,” Pink explains. “They’re making very hard-headed assessments of risk and navigating their careers accordingly.”

Joe Merrill, an independent graphic artist who specializes in corporate presentations, is very comfortable working on his own. “A lot of people, particularly those with families and kids, say they like the security of working for a large company, but I don’t think that’s as secure as owning your own business,” he says.

elf-scheduling nirvana

From his home base in Hoboken, NJ, Merrill, 41, travels extensively for work and enjoys the life of a free agent. He particularly appreciates the variety of the projects, the defined start and stop dates, and the freedom to set his own schedule.

Due to the seasonal nature of his work, Merrill often works nonstop from December through May before taking off much of the summer. “I don’t think I could do a job where I had to pick two or three weeks out of the year to do the things I want to do,” he says.

Owning his schedule is also important to Sharp, who is married with two school-age sons. “Being able to manage my own time and balance work and family time is a tremendous benefit,” he says.

As Pink points out, even employees of companies with relatively flexible schedule policies must ultimately adhere to a single set of rules. “People want to move from one-size-fits-all policies to my-size-fits-me policies,” he says.

Other pluses and minuses

Chris Rank, a free agent photographer and designer in Atlanta, notes that working on your own means wearing a lot of different hats. “You’re your own CEO, CFO and CIO—and you have to know everything that’s going on in your business,” he says.

While many find this variety a rewarding part of free agency, Rank admits it can sometimes be a challenge. “I would prefer to focus on the creative side,” he says. “Before I was married, I did it all. I didn’t do it all well, but I did it.”

Today, he is glad to have his wife, Aimée, manage his billing and accounting.

Working solo for much of his decade-long career, 34-year-old Rank says the flexible lifestyle of a free agent is invaluable. “I can take care of family things without worrying about what an employer might think,” he says. In this, Rank is following in the footsteps of his father, also a self-employed photographer.

In addition to other advantages, the dollars and cents can add up nicely for some free agents. While Sharp estimates that his earnings are roughly equal to those he might bring home in the corporate world, Merrill figures he’s doing far better on his own. “With the right skills and right approach, a free agent can make two or three times as much as he or she would as an employee,” he says.

The future of free agency

Today, with more people than ever drawn to the benefits of self-employment and companies eager to get more work done without adding to payroll costs, the move toward free agency is growing.

“That’s the way the world works these days,” Sharp says. “The free-agent model lets companies buy work incrementally and on-demand, like pay-per-view movies. And guys like me are only too happy to meet their needs.”

Looking ahead, Merrill says skilled free agents shouldn’t worry about the future: “If you have the talent, if you have the abilities people are looking for, you’re always going to find work.”