Author: Sue Walker

Many of us are familiar with the line from George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman: “He who can, does; he who cannot teaches.”

Well, I would beg to differ - some of the best teachers/trainers I have come across in my career are also highly successful industry professionals. When that blend is right, you have a powerful combination. You have someone who does the job, who knows what they’re talking about and who can effectively pass that skill and experience on.

Teaching can become a useful part of a portfolio career. But making the leap from thinking about it, to successfully doing it, means considering a few key things:

Are you sure teaching is for you?

Unless you really want to enable others, moving into teaching/training may still be possible but you may not enjoy it or be any good at it. Or, it may be that you say to yourself, ‘I won’t know until I try.’ Fair enough. So, in that case, it might be useful to explore ways of dipping your toe in to the water. For example, if you have a colleague/contact who teaches, maybe you could shadow them and help out as an assistant at a few of their classes. That way you will get a feel of what it is like to be at the front of the class, enabling and enthusing others.

What audience are you most suited to?

We are looking here at using teaching/training as an additional skill, not as a full-time job, such as a school teacher (unless you love it so much you wish to go that way!) But as a practitioner/teacher, all age groups are still open to you and it is important to know what your preferences are.

I enjoy teaching adults of all ages and feel confident with the 16-year plus age group. But I don’t teach younger children, as I think my skills are more suited to adults. This is useful information as I can concentrate on what I am at my best. So, think about your preferred age group and focus on opening up opportunities there - at least to start.

What training do I need?

The truth is that many industry practitioners who now teach have not had any training. They have learned on the job as they expand what they teach. It also depends where you want to teach. For example, as an Associate Tutor (AT) at university level, this can mean being hired for your current industry experience and your proven ability to teach (which can come from experience in other areas, for example, running workshops or courses for other organisations).

In my case, as an AT, once accepted on the staff, I was then offered ongoing CPD (continuous professional development) and training.

If you wish to teach in further education, perhaps delivering evening classes in adult and community education (a very common sphere for industry practitioners like ourselves), then doing some basic training might be essential. For example:

PTTLS – pronounced ‘petals’, this stands for 'Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector'. It is a bare minimum to have as a formal qualification. If you do put yourself through this, it will show potential clients and employers that you have shown a level of commitment to teaching and have an understanding of how to teach.

PTTLS can be done through local colleges or privately. The cost differs vastly, so be careful which one you choose. Depending on your needs, you can take the PTTLS course in an one intensive week or over a number of months.

When you start looking online for PTTLS courses and information, you will find a dizzying array of providers. Look for a good overview of the qualification and higher ones (e.g., DTLLS – the Diploma level beyond PTTLS) the Institute for Learning’s (IFL) website is very useful.

'Train the trainer' courses

Unlike PTTLS, where there is a common nationally recognised framework that must be worked to, train the trainer courses can vary vastly in content and effectiveness and industry recognition so, again, it's important to be careful to choose the right one.

When starting out, my advice would be to look at PTTLS first, then consider other training as and when you feel the need and can afford it. With teaching, experience is the key – the more you do it, the better you get at it and the richer that aspect of your career becomes.

Disclosure and barring

If you have worked in your creative field with children or vulnerable adults, you may well have been subject to a CRB – Criminal Records Bureau – check. If not, and you intend to go into teaching/training, even if it is with adults, it is likely that you will be asked to undergo checks.

Recently the government created the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS), which replaces the old CRB system. Its aim is to keep information on an individual’s suitability to work with vulnerable groups. Once you have been checked and receive your certificate, you can register to keep it updated and accessible online to future clients and employers. *Note – the initial application must be made by an employer. You cannot apply to have yourself checked. So, for example, if a college requires your services, they will make the application.

Thereafter, registering to keep it updated and accessible online currently costs you £13 a year. This means that future clients and employers can check your status instantly, rather than having to apply and wait (and perhaps you losing that teaching job to someone who has an updated DBS certificate). For more information on the DBS.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of free workshops around the country this year. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

We looked at financial contingency planning in my last blog. So, what else could we consider?

Keep clients informed

In the case of my recent broken wrist, I was lucky. Any work I had to do during my ‘plaster cast period’, I have managed. But what if I couldn’t? The last thing I would want to do would be to let down a client.

If you have built up a good reputation for delivering quality work to deadline, most people would probably be sympathetic if you couldn’t work for a while. However, on a practical note, they still have to manage the working process and meet their brief with or without your contribution. If you act quickly to keep your clients in the loop, you’re much more likely to limit the damage.

If you can re-jig deadlines and work and still keep the client happy, great. In my case, I phoned and emailed everyone to let them know what had happened. Before I did this, I came up with a contingency plan that might work for each client. For example, I was scheduled to work for one client for two days that week. So, when I rang them, I assured them that I could re-schedule the two days to the next week (as I knew that the work wasn’t too time sensitive).

Arrange support

Depending on what your work is, it may also be worth thinking about making arrangements for somebody else that you trust to fill in for you for a short time period if needs be. For example, in my teaching work, I have an ‘approved by my client’ work buddy who can take my class if I can’t.

You might also want to brief somebody on contacting clients to let them know what has happened if you are unable to do so yourself.

Managing the aftermath of my accident hasn’t been too difficult as I had a good idea of what I would do in the case of emergencies. However, I am now thinking of additional contingency plans I could make. This doesn’t mean I’m wasting energy obsessing about potential calamities in the future but ensuring that, if anything does happen, I am as prepared as possible to cope. Knowing that I have plans in place means that I can stop worrying and get on with my life.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of free workshops around the country this autumn. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

It’s crucial to show prospective clients what you have to offer. However, again and again in our workshops, it is clear that many freelances are not marketing themselves well – often because they are not fitting in the time (amongst the many other tasks in our working day) to do so.

As I mentioned in blog 1 this month, the cycle of freelancing is constant and a regular review of your marketing activities and actions to develop new work leads is very much part of that cycle if you are to maintain career success.

Effective marketing tools

Like any business, you’ll benefit from establishing a marketing plan - it doesn't have to be complicated. Your overall strategy should ensure that you use the most effective tools that are available to you. Reviewing what you're doing on a regular basis and adapting accordingly will help:

1. Make a list of the marketing tools you are using currently, e.g., cold calls, social media and networking
2. Decide how you can improve those tools, e.g., schedule in specific time for cold calls, get on Linked In and attend at least one networking event per month
3. Decide which tools work best for you and those that you can get rid of for the moment - it's important to use your resources efficiently, e.g., the networking events that I have been attending are fruitless so  perhaps it's better to concentrate my efforts on social media and try to arrange one-to-one meetings instead
4. Make a list of the tools that you think you should develop - perhaps you've heard about something specific that is working for other freelances, e.g., Twitter
5. Make an action plan to amend your marketing tools over a given time period, e.g., three months (remember you'll need to fit this in with your other work so be realistic)
6. Review the results of what you are doing to see which ones are working the best for you and so on...

Some popular marketing methods that many freelances find successful include:

Maintaining contacts – most freelances would put this at the top or very near the top of their list. It is crucial to keep up with your previous contacts and to continue to cultivate them. It’s far harder to get back in touch with a contact if you have not been in touch for a long time, so get into the habit of making regular contact. For example, a regular quick email just to remind them you are around.

CVs – ensure they are always focused to client needs. Emphasise the skills and experience that are most wanted for a particular occasion. Freelances should have various versions of their CV available, depending on what you want to sell/promote.

Cold calling – not a favourite task for many people but it is important to make new contacts that offer new avenues of work. Put some time in to research who you should target and what you can offer them. Try to find something specific from your work that would most grab their attention.

Website  - keep it looking fresh and up-to-date. Otherwise, it may act against your interests if a client checks you out and sees that your last news entry or blog was three months ago.

Networking events – these can be great opportunities for making contacts. To make the most of them, set yourself some goals beforehand, e.g., to meet three people before you leave.

Social media – as a marketing tool, social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Linked In is becoming an increasingly important way to communicate with target audiences and shouldn’t be ignored as a marketing tool.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of free marketing workshops around the country this autumn. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

 

One of the ongoing challenges that freelances face is adapting their skills and learning new ones to ensure that we can fulfil the skills demand of our clients on an ongoing basis.

We need to identify which new skills are needed, source the best place to learn these and usually pay for training. All a pretty big ask when we are also busy working, managing our careers, and looking for the next job or contract.

Given that we will need to develop our skills at some point or another, it's important that we invest our resources wisely to avoid choosing the wrong training and wasting valuable resources. Considering the following will help:

What upskilling/new skills do you need?

Here, it’s important to think about the skills that will help you get new work in the future. This means understanding client needs in the short- and long-term so that your work remains marketable in a fiercely competitive environment.

In some cases, your aim will be to consolidate and build on existing skills and experience. For example, you may be a novelist who wants to try screenwriting and needs a good quality short course. Or, you may be a performer who needs more voice training as you want to move into voiceovers. At other times, you will be looking to diversify your career portfolio and perhaps create a totally new string to your bow - which may take longer.

Finding the right training for you

Whatever your training/learning needs are, there are a lot of providers out there in the creative professional world and not all are of a high quality. So, once you know what you want to learn, ask around your networks and colleagues for advice and opinions on what provider is best. Ask providers plenty of questions about course content and the expected learning outcomes. Also, see if you can talk to people who have already participated in their training.

Evaluating cost

In rare instances, you might be able to source free training, e.g., FEU Training is able to offer free opportunities to members this year because we have been successful in obtaining funding. This won’t last for much longer, so do make the most of it.

However, you will most likely need to pay for training too. To avoid wasting money, do the research beforehand to ensure that the price of training is cost-effective and helps you get the results you want.

Always ask providers if there is any funding/bursary attached to their courses. You never know, you might qualify for a discount. If you do have to pay the full cost of what you consider to be the best training, you will need to budget for this. Remember, professional training/upskilling is a legitimate tax deductible expense.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of free skills development workshops around the country this year. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).

Working in the creative fields, on a range of projects, can be a truly exciting way to earn a living. Freelances by nature are go-getters, risk-takers, flexible and adaptable. Otherwise we would all have settled for a steady office job. But freelance success means being able to work the ‘cycle of freelancing’, that is, that continuous process of:

• looking for work
• getting new work
• keeping an eye on future work possibilities.

This can seem like a massive task - completing a variety of different work assignments as well as looking for new work certainly takes some organisation and juggling. However, if you get to grips with how best to work that cycle, your chances of work continuity in the short- and long-term will be much improved.

Freelance careers are organic

One way of looking at this cycle is to think about how our freelance careers have developed and will do so in the future. It might be helpful to think of our freelance lives as constantly in movement; dynamic, evolving, living and (hopefully) growing.

In essence, this means we never stand still too long because we need to think how to move forward. This means building on current markets and clients as well as thinking beyond that. In the current and foreseeable economic climate, we may need to think about diversifying and trying out new, albeit related work, in addition to our core ‘offering’.

To improve our chances of success, it is important that we have knowledge of both existing markets/clients as well as look into new potential areas of work.

Past and current clients/markets

If you have been freelancing for a while, you will already have your own known markets and clients. It is very important to keep these ‘warm’ at all times, e.g., even if you’re not working for a particular client currently but you’ve had a successful relationship in the past, you need to ensure that you keep in contact so that they think of you when new work comes up.

This seems like common sense and good freelance business practice. But so many freelances I have worked with fail to do this. Many say that they have let old contacts/clients slip and then, after a length of time, feel uncomfortable or embarrassed to get back in touch. This is understandable in one way but, in another, it just doesn’t make sense. If you have worked with someone and you know that you did a good job, there is no reason to let discomfort or embarrassment get in the way of potential future work.

Your previous clients, assuming that are still in the same business, will always require reliable, talented freelances so do keep in touch. You have nothing to lose and to ignore them is to potentially lessen your chances of staying in work.

Potential clients/markets

To ensure work doesn’t dry up, it’s also important to continuously look for new clients to pitch to. This might be in the same field as you currently work in or, with some lateral thinking, other fields that might require your skills.

You will need to research potential new markets and clients and how best to sell your skills and experience to develop new lines of work.

Opening up new markets and opportunities should be just as much of your the cycle as staying with the tried and tested. Going back to the notion of our freelance careers as organic, this means always seeking out new opportunities and keeping the cycle of freelancing moving forward.

Want to learn more?

FEU Training is running a number of workshops (free to members) around the country this autumn. If you would like to attend, look out for updates for workshops coming to your region or register your interest at [email protected] (if we have sufficient demand, we’ll come to you).