My second business birthday

This month, Leyla Alexander Design is going to be 2!

Next week in fact. Hurrah!

It's been a crazy, fun ride and whilst scary at times (hello imposter syndrome and a bloody pandemic), it's been clear from the beginning that setting up on my own was the best decision I could make for me.

There have been times when I've wondered whether I should carry on, to only read a jobs board and feel my heart sinking at the thought of walking away. Despite those moments, I truly love working for myself and the freedom it allows. I even love all the admin, bookkeeping, marketing and business learning that I do behind-the-scenes!

So as I approach my second anniversary, it feels appropriate to begin my blog with some of the myths and preconceived ideas I had before taking the freelance leap and how they have been turned upside down along the way…

5 Freelancing Myths Debunked

#1 - Freelancing will be lonely.

Reality:
Ok. So I still get lonely sometimes, but who knew the communities I would find and the friends I would make going solo? I certainly didn't and this has been my greatest discovery. I have made so many business buddies over the past couple of years. People who I now meet for lunches or a walk in the peak district...I even went on a Christmas do last month! Had I known that I wouldn't be lonely as a freelancer, I would have taken the leap years ago! As an introvert, part of this has been down to pushing outside of my comfort zone slightly but I'm so glad that I did. So here's to community! And as Steve Folland of the awesome Being Freelance community says, "You're never alone being freelance."

#2 - I don't need a niche.

Reality:
Don't get me wrong, I know plenty of successful designers who get by without a niche or ideal client and they love both the variety of the work that they do and the people they do it for. To begin with, I thought this was how I wanted to freelance as well. But as time went on, I got a little bit stuck. Stuck with my marketing. Stuck with the wrong clients. Stuck doing work I didn't go freelance to do. It was only when I really honed in on why I felt stuck, that I knew I needed a shake up. I went back to my values and my ideal client. I went back to my reason for going freelance - my why - and built everything back up from there. With this in place, I have my compass. I'm saying no to work or businesses that aren't the right fit, freeing up my time for the work that I love and the people I love working for. Small businesses and organisations with big hearts who want to create joy and change for the better.

#3 - I can wing it.

Reality:
I'm quite good at winging it. As a parent. At adulting in general, but then aren't we all? I'd say there's still a fair amount of winging it as a business owner. But to wing it completely? That's how I ended up stuck (see myth #2). It's only been since I've focused on my own brand strategy that I've felt clearer in my communications and ready to start pressing 'send' or 'post' or 'publish'. Planning and doing the things! For someone who bangs on about brand strategy to my clients, it's a bit embarrassing now to think how I neglected my own for so long. We live and we learn, eh?!

#4 - Freelancing isn’t the same as running a business.

Reality:
Wtaf (!) I hear you say. I had this one so wrong, didn’t I? Yet I have to admit that in the beginning, I didn't really think of freelancing as running a business. I guess as a designer I thought that I would go down the recruiter/contract route and not have to do all the marketing and business thinking and networking (and the rest…) but I realised very quickly that I didn't want to work that way. I wanted to work with my own clients and finding them on your own is a completely different ball-game. Freelancing IS running a business. So hell yes, I'm a bonafide entrepreneur baby!

#5 - It needs to be perfect.

Reality:
Nope. It doesn't. To be fair, it took a long time to let go of this one and in some ways I'm still struggling. Nevertheless, earlier this year I wanted to replace my portfolio website with a website that positioned what I do as the business it is. And I felt overwhelmed at all the things I needed to do to get it perfect so I could put it live. But thank you to some good advice, I put it live unfinished with the key pages in place. My portfolio isn't finished and I have a list so long on everything else I want to do to for it to be “perfect” to me but it's out there and I'm still getting clients. Yes, I need to keep chipping away at it. But did it need to be perfect? Nope. And the same is true for a lot of things. Perfect insta grid? Nah, no-one really cares. Just post it and keep pushing forward with messy, imperfect action*

*note to self, keep pushing.