Cohort 5

Learn how to start and sustain a successful and fulfilling freelance practice.

Sarah Jutras

Solopreneur and design director

Designing Your Freelance Business

PayPal

ModCloth

Chairish

General Assembly

I get it. You're a talented creative professional. You've designed amazing products, crafted beautiful user experiences, and maybe even shipped a few apps to the App Store.&nbsp;But the leap to freelancing? That feels like a whole different ball of wax. Perhaps you've tried to figure it out on your own. Late nights spent scouring blogs, devouring books, and binge-watching YouTube videos. You've taken guesses on different pricing structures and paid for way too many project management tools. Yet still, things aren’t quite clicking into place. The advice is often conflicting and either too generic or so niche that it doesn't meet you where you're at.&nbsp; That’s because freelancing isn't one-size-fits-all. You need education, adaptable frameworks, and support to learn how to make freelancing work for YOU. In 2016 I quit my corporate job as a product design director and left behind what wasn’t working for me, and I’ve been creating a new way of working, for myself, ever since. And you can too. The top 3 things freelancers worry about most involve:(1) finding work to make money(2) keeping organized with operations, and(3) setting boundaries and attaining balance You no longer have to worry whether you're doing it right. After our time together, you'll not only have foundational systems to help you run your business but you will be inspired to redesign your work life by: ✦ Creating a flexible schedule that works for you ✦ Building a sustainable income on your own terms ✦ Choosing projects that ignite your passion ✦ Making a real impact with your work ✦ Going from in-house employee to successful freelancer – even if you're afraid of giving up that steady paycheck ✦ Finding fulfillment in being a business owner

Does the thought of freelancing both excite and terrify you?

Aspiring freelancers who want the confidence to quit their 9-to-5 (or 9-to-9!) job even if they don’t have a solid game plan (yet)

Active solopreneurs struggling with inefficient systems and overwhelm who want to design more intentional processes that lead to growth

Design/Tech industry creatives who worry about finding consistent, high-quality clients and want to become magnets for dream projects

Creative business owners who are ready to attract better clients, and achieve the harmony in their work AND life they’ve been looking for

This course is designed for

In Designing Your Freelance Business you'll...

<ul><li>Define your core values to help guide your future business decisions</li><li>Identify your unique service offerings that set you apart in the market</li><li>Establish concrete fit-for-you financial goals that motivate and guide you</li><li>Master the art of pricing your services for profitability</li></ul>

Transform your mindset from employee to entrepreneur

<ul><li>Establish daily practices and SOPs so you can spend more time on what matters&nbsp;</li><li>Create a calendar and task planning system best for your brain</li><li>Design personal rituals that fuel your creativity and well-being</li><li>Maintain healthy boundaries to manage stress and prevent burnout</li></ul>

Design a sustainable freelance lifestyle that prevents burnout

<ul><li>Develop a strategy for finding and landing clients</li><li>Craft compelling proposals that close deals</li><li>Get templates for running a project from start to finish with the support of tools like Notion</li><li>Design seamless and thoughtful client onboarding and handoff experiences</li></ul>

Create systems that attract and retain dream clients

<ul><li>Define your values, why freelance?</li><li>Identify your unique service offering to better connect to the right clients</li><li>Setting expectations on expected challenges of freelance and what to watch out for</li></ul>

Doing work differently

<ul><li>Get checklists on how to setup your business with necessary registration, insurance, and taxes</li><li>Differentiate between pricing models</li><li>Calculate your rate structures by outlining your ideal income and budget</li></ul>

Making it too legit to quit

<ul><li>Discover practices and recommended tools for running an organized business</li><li>Construct the client experience through all touchpoints: biz dev, to proposals, to onboarding, to handoff, to invoicing</li><li>Practice role play with a biz dev call!</li></ul>

Designing the client experience

<ul><li>Tip to manage your workload and burnout</li><li>Build practices for sustainability</li><li>Design your time and day to day practices through personal rituals</li></ul>

Prototyping balance and boundaries

Course syllabus

Watch the course trailer

If you feel the call to reinvent yourself and intentionally redesign your work and your life, you can. Making your own way may feel much more amorphous and uncertain, but you just need the tools to ask the questions, to experiment, and to discover what is meaningful — for you.

Teaching from experience

A one-size-fits-all career is a fallacy. Business as usual is bunk. Join the freelance life by Designing Your Freelance Business.

Stay in the loop

Plus you'll receive a Notion biz kit of templates to run your business

Recorded lessons of lecture and demo walkthroughs that you can watch on your own time and return to at any point in the journey of launching or running your business.

Exclusive video content

Specific course assignments will help you get hands on with building your business and your operating procedures. You'll be able to leverage coaching and peer feedback from the cohort community to help you progress.

Weekly projects

Our live time together is spent on live review, interactive workshopping, and group critiques.<ul><li>Workshop 1: Weds 10/25</li><li>Workshop 2: Weds 11/1</li><li>Workshop 3: Weds 11/8</li></ul>

Live workshopping

Take a break in your day and join me in my afternoon office hours for small group coaching and additional guidance on your projects.

Additional "Tea Time" office hours

Course schedule

Join us in the freelance life

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Active hands-on learning

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Interactive and project-based

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

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