Corporate Work vs. Freelancing

By stephdorworth

December 14, 2022

Navigate to where you want to go:

1.1 Intro

1.2 Freelancing is Growing

1.3 Pros and Cons

1.4 Making the Shift to Freelancing

1.5 Start Freelancing Today

Intro

In today’s blog (and new YouTube) I want to have more of an open discussion comparing working for corporate business vs freelancing for yourself. So I invite comments below to discuss this.

There are many pros and cons to each, so let’s cover those today as I also share some surprising statistics about the growing freelancing community.

Growing up, most of us are raised to believe we should follow the traditional route from high school to college to corporate America work.

If you watched my story youtube back in August, you learned how I was encouraged to take this routine. But if I were to go back in time, I likely wouldn’t anymore.

That’s because my priorities have shifted. I once valued a safe job with a regular income working for corporate America. But now, I question if they really are safer.

As a PT, I had friends get furloughed over COVID-19 and lose jobs as their clinics shut down. So is corporate really safer?

I now value freedom with my time, location, and finances so I can get paid my worth. And corporate America simply can’t offer that.

Anyways, I digress. But my point is, many of us were raised to take one path. But that’s because our parents were perhaps not aware of the second path we could choose from which is self employment or online freelancing.

Watch the full lesson here:

Freelancing is Growing

Get this: almost 59 million people in the US are freelancing and that number is expected to grow each year to the point where in five years the number of freelancers could outnumber full time employees.

44% of Americans have a side hustle, many of which eventually turn that into their full-time gig once it takes off.

And there are around 4.2 million registered Fiverr buyers at the moment, which is proof that lots of small businesses and even larger companies are looking for short-term help on smaller projects.

Freelancing is growing fast!

Pros and Cons

Let’s take a look at some of the pros and cons of corporate business work vs freelancing work for yourself.

I’ve put together a visual to show some of my top points:

The main thing corporate offers you that freelancing doesn’t is the first point: healthcare & benefits. Corporate usually includes healthcare and a 401k if you’re full-time. Whereas freelancing doesn’t, so those are things you need to find on your own.

Personally for me, it works out fine as I am on my husband’s corporate healthcare plan. But if I didn’t have that, I’d simply pay for it separately. And then each year, I also set aside a certain amount of money for retirement, as well.

But besides that, I’ve got to be honest.

Freelancing looks really sparkly and shiny over there with all of its pros:

-Work from anywhere

-Work when you want

-Give yourself a raise at anytime

-Overdeliver so you can get tips more often

-Take time off anytime

-Work alone and avoid the pointless meetings to impress others

All of that sounds like heaven to me!

Whereas with corporate you have to work when you’re told, perhaps work days or shifts you hate, your salary is capped, raises are minimal if any, you likely can’t bonus or get tips much, you have a max PTO time, and mandatory meetings that are wasting your time.

The only other thing I envy about corporations is that your income is fixed. So if you have a week you’re sick and a week you’re on vacation - you’re still getting paid. Whereas with freelancing you’re paid for the work you do. When you’re not working on projects you’re not getting paid.

It really comes down to, which do you prefer? The controlled safety net of corporate or the freedom of freelancing?

Making the Shift to Freelancing

Whatever you decide, I hope you decide with your mind and soul. Do what feels right for you and lights you up - gets you excited.

If you decide freelancing is for you, I do suggest that you try it out first.

Instead of quitting corporate today, test the waters with freelancing first. Build freelancing as your side hustle first to get more experience with it and build more consistent income. Then, and only then, once you have consistent income that you’re happy with at its minimum should you take the risk of quitting corporate to focus all your time on freelancing and scaling it from there.

It can take some time to build your own freelancing gig and I highly suggest you do so on more than one platform. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket, because if one freelancing website shuts you down and removes your gig because you didn’t follow the rules you could be done…unless you have a backup.

Experiment, try it out, and then pursue it full-time only once you’re confident in it.