The rise in freelancing wasn’t only a COVID pattern. Based on Gartner, by 2025, unbiased staff will make up between 35% and 40% of the worldwide workforce.
However regardless of its reputation, being a freelancer can be tough—particularly in a creative field. You typically have nobody to bounce concepts off of, ask for assist whenever you get overwhelmed, or lean on when enterprise is sluggish.
The opposite apparent options to having a extra solitary profession—committing to a enterprise associate or increase a crew—can really feel constricting. Us freelancers typically selected solo careers for independence and freedom. Why would we assume accountability for—or reply to—anybody else?
Fortuitously, there’s a construction that mixes the perfect of partnership with out the accountability and dedication of a extra formal association. We name it “partner-lancing,” and we’ve been doing it efficiently for the final a number of years.
What’s partner-lancing?
When two folks partner-lance, they comply with mix their efforts on many fronts, save prices on some providers and administration duties, and increase one another’s abilities and capability. Give it some thought like dwelling with somebody earlier than getting married or combining two households however conserving separate financial institution accounts.
We imagine partner-lancing is a mannequin that works particularly properly for ladies, for whom being a solopreneur may be an especially attractive proposition.
Too typically, U.S. enterprise tradition promotes development and worth by extracting it from lower-cost labor. Companion-lancing, in distinction, is a collaborative, trust-based, and lifestyle-oriented mannequin for many who care extra about sustaining their independence and life-style whereas nonetheless getting the advantages of working with others.
Here’s a step-by-step information for the best way to create a partner-lancing dynamic give you the results you want:
Discover your doppelganger
Fairly than discovering a associate with complementary abilities (as an example, strategists partnering with designers, or entrepreneurs with product builders), partner-lancing is usually greatest when every associate is comparable. It’s about discovering somebody you belief to supply an analogous output, on the similar high quality, as you’ll your self.
We met as freelancers engaged on a challenge for a similar company. After partnering on a number of initiatives, we needed to do it once more.
Companion-lancing can imply sharing income. Nevertheless, the tradeoff is that you may share the load with, and bounce concepts off of, somebody you belief. If one in every of us immediately will get busy, will get sick, or needs to take a (gasp) precise trip, we now have one another’s again.
We don’t share each challenge. However, most of the time, we need to work collectively as a result of the advantages outweigh the prices.
Preserve your relationships
We supply initiatives by leveraging our private networks and by promoting and delivering work below every of our respective manufacturers. Whoever wins the enterprise is the consumer lead and runs the challenge as she sees match. It’s fully as much as her to make use of the opposite particular person’s time; she additionally decides if the associate shall be client-facing. We observe hours labored and tally up on the finish, dividing the price proportionally by precise time labored.
All through many initiatives, we’ve discovered that we usually keep an 80/20 cut up between the lead and assist. We’ve additionally imbued fairness in our setup. As an illustration, we don’t cost one another a referral price on the preliminary transaction. We imagine that issues will equalize ultimately and commit ourselves to the well being of the partnership.
Discover economies of scale
As soon as we began working collectively extra frequently, we discovered some ways to avoid wasting time and create efficiencies. We began by doubling our enterprise improvement efforts and by collaborating on a capabilities presentation that we might tailor to our particular person pitches. This labored so properly that we determined to share the price of a designer to assist us create a regular presentation template that we will simply personalize by switching out our logos. We did the identical with an internet whiteboard instrument.
Now we now have a sturdy library of slide and workshop templates that we will every customise and use as wanted. That means, when we have to bounce in to assist one another, we have already got a shared means of working so there’s no time spent coaching or explaining our methodology. We now co-develop and share templates for the whole lot: consumer shows, frameworks, case research, scopes of labor, estimates, and extra.
Divvy up the grunt work
Whereas we share comparable talent units, on the operations facet, we now have barely completely different strengths. We simply divvy up the non-billable “grunt work”. Miriam gravitates in direction of creating processes and templates whereas Sara enjoys creating advertising and marketing methods.
By divvying up grunt work based mostly on every associate’s strengths and pursuits, you’ll be able to ensure that your partnership pays off for every particular person.
Maintain one another accountable
Once you’re a freelancer, nobody checks in the event you’ve fallen behind on a deadline. As a substitute of updating one another on our particular person targets, we share our pipeline and advertising and marketing targets. We maintain a standing assembly each two weeks to replace one another on progress. This retains us targeted on future enterprise and provides one another visibility if we plan to tackle a challenge that requires the opposite particular person’s assist.
We additionally plan longer in-person conferences quarterly, the place we will take our time to work via our listing of longer-term initiatives, take inventory of how issues are working, and take into consideration the larger image—normally over a hike or a relaxed dinner.
By holding one another accountable, freelancers can guarantee that you just and your associate keep on observe.
Take it sluggish
Like all relationship, we needed to kind a basis of belief, generosity, and honesty first. From the start, we’ve shared our considerations and suggestions instantly with one another. We consciously took issues sluggish, working collectively on one challenge after one other for practically two years earlier than deciding to mix forces. Even now, we’ve chosen to maintain our particular person LLCs and company names. We’ve thought-about combining into one company—and should sometime—however, for now, partner-lancing is the perfect of each worlds.